Today
In 1923 Atsena Otie Key was purchased for $500, and in 1929 the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge established on nearby Snake, Bird, and North Keys. In 1950 the last remaining house on the island was destroyed by Hurricane Easy (1950).
In 1997 Atsena Otie Key was sold to the Suwannee River Water Management District who entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to have the island managed as part of the Cedar Keys NWR. The island is open for public use.
Atsena Otie Key is mentioned in the second act of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, an opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill: the characters are waiting for a hurricane and they receive news that Pensacola and Atsena have just been destroyed by it.
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