The Mallory Square area was the hub of Key West's wrecking industry in the 19th century, with warehouses where salvage from ships wrecked on the reef was stored and auctioned. It was named for Stephen R. Mallory, who left the United States Senate to become Secretary of the Navy for the Confederacy States. The area includes Hospitality House, originally the offices for the Clyde Mallory Steamship Co. and now the home of the Old Island Restoration; two cable houses used to store underwater cable for repairing telegraph wires between Key West and Cuba; Tift's Ice House and company offices, native stone structures dating to about 1847 and the oldest commercial buildings on the island; the Waterfront Playhouse, built about 1850 and used for storage of salvaged goods awaiting auction; two walled cisterns used to supply water for ships; a brick warehouse built by William H. Wall, a shipwrecked Englishman who made his fortune in the wrecking business; the Key West Aquarium, built in the 1930s as a federal relief project; Babcocks Grocery, built about 1899 and now the Key West Art Center; and the Old Fisherman's Cafe, moved to the site in 1981. Mallory Square is also known worldwide for its celebration of sunset and as the hub of the city's tourism industry.
