St. Croix, USVI: Christiansted, Cruzan Rum & the American Caribbean's Crown

St. Croix is the largest of the United States Virgin Islands, and the one that feels most like a place where people actually live rather than a place built for visitors. It is eighty-four square miles of rolling green countryside, sugar-mill ruins, and two small towns, Christiansted on the east and Frederiksted on the west, that still wear their Danish colonial past on their facades. Like its sister islands, St. Croix is an American territory, bought from Denmark in 1917, and Crucians have been American citizens for a century. It is the island of rum, of reef, and of the easternmost point you can stand on in the United States.

Christiansted

Christiansted is a town of yellow fortifications and arcaded sidewalks, laid out by the Danes in the eighteenth century around a deep natural harbor. The centerpiece is Fort Christiansvaern, the best-preserved of the forts that make up the Christiansted National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service. From the ramparts you can look out over the harbor to Protestant Cay, and the streets behind the fort, Company Street and King Street, are lined with the pastel townhouses of the Danish merchant class. It was here, in the 1760s, that a young Alexander Hamilton lived and clerked before emigrating to the American colonies.

Cruzan Rum and Buck Island

St. Croix is the rum island. Cruzan Rum, distilled in Frederiksted on the island's west end, is one of the oldest rum brands in the Caribbean, the distillery has been making rum on the same site for over two centuries, and the island's sugarcane heritage runs straight into its glass. Tours walk you through the barrel house and the history. Out on the water, Buck Island Reef National Monument, a protected island and reef six miles off the north shore, holds one of only three underwater snorkeling trails in the United States National Park system, a marked route through elkhorn coral and a wall that drops into the blue. At the eastern tip of the island, Point Udall is the easternmost point of the United States by land, and the sunrise there is the first in the country.

Getting There

Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (STX) is served by direct flights from Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, and San Juan on American, Delta, and JetBlue.

Reference Links:

- US Virgin Islands (official tourism): visitusvi.com

- Christiansted National Historic Site (NPS): nps.gov/chri

- Cruzan Rum Distillery: cruzanrum.com

- Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (Wikipedia): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Croix,_U.S._Virgin_Islands