Many years ago in the 1860's, wreckers brought back to Key West a shipment of red merino wool cloth salvaged from a wrecking operation. The town ladies went wild. They purchased all available material, then set about cutting and sewing shawls, the fashion statement of the time.

The popular shawls appeared everywhere. The men, smilingly dubbed any gathering of gossiping ladies as "red shawling it".

100 years later in the 1960's the Old Island Restoration Foundation adopted this fashion to identify their volunteer workers, and it has been their unofficial logo ever since.