John James Audubon arrived in Key West, Florida, on May 6, 1832. The key happens to be a series of keys that stretch about four miles long and one mile wide. The present-day city of Key West is located on the largest of the keys known as Key West. The city of Key West is currently the most southern city in the lower 48 United States. John Simonton received title to Key West from Spanish authorities in 1822. He then quartered Key West and kept one quarter and sold the other three. Audubon reached Key West at the time when Key West ranked as the wealthiest city per capita in the United States.
The most important contact for Audubon in Key West was Dr. Benjamin Strobel. Strobel was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1803, and was a close friend of Rev. John Bachman (1790-1874). Strobel graduated from the Medical College of South Carolina (MUSC) in 1826 and moved to Key West with his wife, Mary, in 1829. Like Bachman and Audubon, Strobel had a keen interest in birds.
Of the birds that Strobel had in his collection of specimens, Audubon ranked one of them among “the most brilliant gems and the richest metals.” George Shaw (1751-1813) and James Francis Stephens (1792-1852) identified the bird in General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History as Trochilus mango. The scientific name for the species refers not to the fruit from the Mango tree (Mangifera indica) but to the Mangrove tree (Rhizophora mangle) that is common to the Florida Keys. For Birds of America, Audubon gave the bird a common name in reference to the scientific name for the bird. Although, the Mango Humming Bird has since been named in reference to the Mangrove tree. According to Cornell’s e-Bird system, the Mangrove hummingbird has yet to reappear in the United States. Practically all of the records of the endangered species are among the Mangrove trees that grow on the west coast of Costa Rica.