Key West - 1884 to
recent times
Key
West Sketch 1884
To the
left of the sketch below which appeared in Florida
for Tourists, Invalids, and Settlers one can see
the causeway running to Fort Taylor. In the foreground is
a mix of various types of homes and the Key West
Lighthouse. Sailing ships can be seen in the harbor and a
larger warehouse type building in the distance to the
right of the lighthouse.
For
a larger view click on the image.
Comment
from Florida for tourists, invalids, and settlers,
a travel book published 1884 by George M. Barbour
"Key
West is in Monroe County, on an island of the name of
the city, of about twelve square miles. It is a
Spanish-looking town of nearly 20,000 inhabitants, is
lighted by gas, runs street cars, and is reached by
telegraph.
It is
a quaint and antiquated novel city, full of oddities
and variety. Dr. Henshall says its buildings are all
of all sizes and of every conceivable style or no
style, of architecture; and they are promiscuously
jumbled together, but are joined or seamed to each
other by a wealth and profusion of tropical foliage,
which surrounds, invests, surmounts, and overshadows
them, softening the asperities, toning down the harsh
outlines, and uniting the separate pieces, which merge
their individuality in a harmonious
tout
ensemble.
The writer sums up Key West's heterogeneous
attractions in these words: 'And so, mansions, huts,
and hovels, balconies, canopies, and porches, gables,
hoods, and pavilions, pillars, columns, and pilasters,
are mingled in endless confusion, but harmonized by
arabesques of fruit and foliage, festoons of vines and
creepers, wreaths and traceries of climbing shrubs and
trailing flowers, and shady bowers of palm and
palmetto, almond and tamarind, lime and lemon, orange
and banana.' "
Key
West - 1891 - Portion of description appearing in The
Key West Daily Equator-Democrat written by visitor
Lucie Vannevar.
"It
is Key West's misfortune that steamers going and
coming from Havana and other ports stop over some
hours. This may seem a startling assertion, but we
make it advisedly; and to us it seems the strongest
reason why so little of the truth is known about the
city and its surroundings.
Coming
into one of the prettiest harbors on the coastline of
this or any other country, the first impression of Key
West as one steps ashore is not a pleasant one. The
street leading up from the wharf is literally packed
with carriages, the price of whose hire is so
ridiculously low that, almost without exception, the
whole ship's passenger list goes driving and in two
hours have "done" the city, or think they have, and
people scatter the country through and anathematize
Key West as a place of small houses, dirty streets,
cigar factories and Cubans.
Probably
no other city in the Union has had such great
injustice done as this one, and no other city is so
little known. We made a careful study of Key West and
so know of what we write.
And
this is what we mean by calling the stopping off of
tourists for a few hours a misfortune.
They
drive around, imagine they have thoroughly explored
the island, and nine times out of ten return home and
tell absolute untruths quite unaware, because they
themselves have received a false
impression.
In
very truth Key West is the most charming, as it is the
most quaint of American cities, and some day Fashion
will set her seal upon it.
Like
some fair woman, none know Key West but to love her,
but alas! so few know her as she really is, the city
which by reason of her natural advantages should be
the most attractive health resort in the
world."
Key
West - 1894 - Comment from a magazine article entitled
"Subtropical Florida"
"dusty
old town" , "little of interest here to to hold a
tourist"
Key
West - 1910
Winthrop
Packard provided a much nicer description of Key West
than the comments
of Mark Twain
in 1876 or that which appeared in the Subtropical Florida
article referred to above. Packard's writing first
appeared in a series of articles in the Boston Evening
Transcript and were then published in a book entitled
Florida Trails in 1910.
"The
cleansing tides and the east winds which surge
perpetually over the island keep the city of twenty
thousand inhabitants serenely healthy on Key West,
without wells or sewers, paving or street cleaning.
Walking along the dusty streets where shack-like
wooden houses are piled together in that good-natured
confusion which marks the usual West Indian town one
does not go far without having a sudden impulse to
shout with delight, for soon all roads lead to the
verge of the island, the rich, soothing breath of the
trade winds and a glimpse of the miraculous sea. You
may come upon this sight as often as you will, you
will never get over the sudden stab of the delight of
it . If environment is the matrix of beauty the
inhabitants of this favored isle should in time rival
the gods and goddesses of mythology. That they do not
is probably because not enough generations have
succeeded each other in these surroundings."
Key
West - 1912
Click
for larger panoramic image
In 1904 a
panoramic camera called "Cirkut panoramic camera" was
invented . This camera rotated on a tripod and was able
to take a picture with a 360 degree field of view. If you
would like a copy of this restored photograph size 9 by
54 inches contact stan@cirkutpanorama.com
or go to http;//www.cikcutpanorama.com
Click
image for another panoramic photo
Key
West -1934-35
Poet
Robert Frost who wintered in the city in 1934-1935 during
the time it was governed by the Federal Government (see
Key West - 1934 below) apparently did not favor the city
and wrote that Key West,
"is
a very, very dead place because it has died several
times. It died as a resort of pirates, then as a house
of smugglers and wreckers . . . then as a winter
resort boomtown."
He
also wrote,
"There
is no sanitation. The water is all off the roofs and
after it goes through people I don't know where it
goes. Everything is shabby and even dilapidated."
These
quote are disceptive however as Frost must have enjoyed
Key West since he returned there many times.
Key
West, 1934 - Poorest city in America on Way to Becoming a
Tourist Mecca
Key West
once the richest city in the United States in terms of
per capita income declared bankruptcy in 1934. The city
was 5 million dollars in debt with eighty percent of its
12,000 inhabitants on welfare. Its population had
dwindled from more than 26,000 in 1910 as a result of the
depression and job losses. Shipwreck salvaging was no
longer a means of income, the cigar making industry had
moved to Tampa and the sponge industry had move to Tarpon
Springs. The city couldn't pay its employees on a
consistent basis and municipal services such the
collection of garbage went undone.
Franklin
D. Roosevelt, the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, and Julius Stone, Jr.
Times
were tough in Key West until actions by the Federal
Government helped save the city. Thanks to Julius Stone,
Jr. and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
(FERA) created by newly elected President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Key West got its start toward becoming a
tourist Mecca.
Julius
Stone, Jr., an administrator for the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration, helped transform Key West by
taking over administration of the city. He brought city
planners, legal council, engineers, architects, and
Federal funding of a million dollars.
Stone
began by cleaning up the city with volunteers. He
directed that garbage waste and trash be dumped in the
ocean. He reasoned the Key West could be saved by making
it into a tourist paradise. He saw Key West as America's
only Caribbean island that people could drive to. He
reasoned that by making Key West into a tropical tourist
destination he could create employment for the local
residents. He was in fact able to reduce unemployment by
two thirds in less than a year. Stone began to promote
Key west as America's Bermuda and started encouraging
locals to wear Bermuda shorts to work. Through Stone's
efforts and with volunteer support and Federal money,
Stone replaced the city's primitive outhouses with a
municipal sewer system, renovated the bankrupt Casa
Marina Hotel and saw to it that the island's restaurants,
bars, and nightclubs were cleaned and newly painted.
Hundreds of guest cottages were renovated.
The
infrastructure of the City was improved. Coconut palms
were planted to instill a tropical feel, thatched huts
were built on the island's beaches and scenic areas were
landscaped. The State of Florida saw to it that work was
resumed on the Overseas Highway, Key West's
transportation link to the mainland.
thatched
huts were built on the island's beaches
Key West
began to promote itself as a tourist destination. An
aquarium was built on Mallory Square. Hotels and guests
houses saw increased business. Restaurants began to
prosper. The Federal work program of the WPA brought in
writers and artist . Their paintings and watercolors now
graced the walls of the City and other Keys' locations,
but were also used to promote tourism on brochures and
postcards.
Critics
described Stone as high handed, arrogant, undemocratic,
and a dictator. He broke the rules, and at times he
ignored Federal Emergency Relief Administration
guidelines, and if he felt it needed doing he just went
ahead and did it . Yet, after two years of under Stone's
leadership, the City of Key was able to take back
administration of government and was set on a path to
becoming a tourist Mecca.
Hemingway.
"I'd rather eat
monkey manure than die in Key West."
The above quote
attributed to Ernest Hemingway by Joy Williams in The
Florida Keys: A History and Guide was uttered "one
summer day." while Hemingway was "sweating in the
sulfuous, warm, and brownish waters of his swimming pool,
years before he chose to die in Indiana." Hemingway lived
in Key West during the years 1928 to 1940.
Get in
Touch with Hemingway's Key West
Hemingway's
Key West by
Stuart B. McIver from Amazon. -
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For a vivid
portrait of Key West during Hemingway's time of
residence read Stuart B. McIver's book. Mclver's
Hemingway's Key West describes Ernest
Hemingway's experiences in tropical Key West in
the 1930s during the time "Papa" Hemingway was
at his most productive. While living in Key West
in addition to writing some of his best short
stories, Hemingway finished writing A
Farewell to Arms, started For Whom the
Bell Tolls, and wrote Green Hills of
Africa, Death in the Afternoon, and
To Have and Have Not. Hemingway also
found time left for fishing, much drinking, and
chasing women.
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The book also provides a
two-hour walking tour, exploring Hemingway's favorite Key
West haunts, and describes Hemingway's experiences in
Bimini and Cuba. While in Cuba Hemingway wrote his
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning "The Old Man and the
Sea".
Hemingway describes Key
West in To
Have and Have Not
- 
To
Have and Have Not ,
Hemingway's only book set in America, published in 1937,
and set in and near Key West, Florida, is nothing like
the Bogart/Bacall movie of the same title. The movie
stars Bogart as a brave fishing-boat captain in World War
II-era Martinique. As most Hollywood movies would have it
Bogart battles the Nazis, aids the Resistance, and finds
true love in the end. Hemingway's novel concerns a down
and out fishing-boat captain who must carry contraband
between Cuba and Florida in order to feed his wife and
daughters.
In addition to his
writing pursuits, drinking, fishing and hanging out with
his Key West buddies, Hemingway often enjoyed evening
walks through Key West. A good description of 1930s
"Conch Town" in the evening hours appears in
Hemingway's To
Have and Have Not
.
The moon was up
now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed
the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming
from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with
their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was
starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grits and
boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice,
righteousness, inter-breeding and the comforts of
religion; the open-doored, lighted Cuban bolito
houses, shacks whose only romance was their names; The
Red House, Chicha's; the pressed stone church; its
steeples sharp, ugly triangles against the moonlight;
the big grounds and the long, black-domed bullk of the
convent, handsome in the moonlight; a filling station
and a sandwich place, bright-lighted beside a vacant
lot where a miniature golf course had been taken out;
past the brightly lit main street with the three drug
stores, the music store, the five Jew stores, three
poolrooms, two barbershops, five beer joints, three
ice cream parlors, the five poor and the one good
restaurant, two magazine and paper places, our
second-hand joints (one of which made keys), a
photographer's, an office building with four dentists'
offices upstairs, the big dime store, a hotel on the
corner with taxis opposite; and across, behind the
hotel, to the street that led to jungle town, the big
unpainted frame house with lights and the girls in the
doorway, the mechanical piano going, and a sailor
sitting in the street; and then on back, past the back
of the brick courthouse with its clock luminous at
half-past ten, past the whitewashed jail building
shining in the moonlight.
The
Key West Reader
The
Key West Reader: The Best of the Key Wests Writers
1830-1990 by
George Murphy (Editor), Thomas McGuane, Ernest Hemingway,
Caputo
Over the past century,
the island city of Key West has been home to many
Pulitzer Prize Winners and other esteemed writers:
Erenest Hemingway, Tennesse Williams, John Hersey, Tom
McGuane, Phil Caputo, James Merrill, Elizabeth Bishop,
Richard Wilbur, and Hunter S. Thompson, to name just a
few.
Here, for the first time,
an anthology which celebrates the literary heritage of
Key West: the island seen through the eyes of twenty-five
of its most renowned writers.
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Review by Island
Life of Key West :
The Key West
Reader is a spectacular collection... So many
diverse writers sharing one thing in common, the
Island of Key West, where each, in his or her
own way, left their mark.
It is
consistently readable and a constant source of
fascination that this tiny island city could be
the source of so many fine pieces of
writing...
Particularly
notable is the rare essay "Who Killed the Vets,"
Ernest Hemingway's first-hand account of the
1935 hurricane (still the strongest in recorded
history) which washed out Henry Flagler's
Overseas Railroad and killed
thousands.
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