Welcome to Cudjoe Key, some people think Cudjoe Key is named after the Joewood tree, also known as cudjoewood. Writer John Viele has another theory. He thinks the island is so named because of a fugitive or freed slave who lived on the island and who was named Cudjoe, a common Akan name. The island was first, in 1959, a U.S. Army base, and then taken over by the Air Force, and then it became Homestead Joint Air Reserve Base. In recent years the DEA flies a white radar aerostat (balloon) called Fat Albert to use for drug interdictions. Cudjoe Key is crossed by the Overseas Highway at about mile markers 20.5 -23.