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"The place where the unexpected happens with monotonous regularity"
--Benedict Thielen, writer
by Anna Collins
(Note:Click
on this
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When
the Village People sang about Key West in the 70s and proclaimed it to
be "the key to happi-ness" they were right. It's hard
not to be happy on Bone Key, Cayo Hueso, Thompson's Island, the Conch
Republic or Allenton as Key West is also called. After all—what's
not to like; quaint surroundings, island ambiance, sunsets to take your
breath away. And about 300 well-stocked bars.
Arguably,
Key West is one of the most popular tourist havens in the continental
Unites States, and maybe the world. It's been a retreat for the famous,
the ambitious and the not so ambitious. The population has included the
faces of Harry S. Truman, Tennessee Williams, Mel Fisher and of course,
the Drinkmeister General, Ernest Hemmingway. But in addition to its reputation
as an island paradise, Key West has a rich and colorful history that reveals
itself to be as charming and interesting as it's modern day allure.
A Little Background Music...
Key
West is the Southernmost point in the United States and is bordered
by the straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. The island is 1.25
miles wide and almost 4 miles long—approximately 2,752 acres.
It's 98 miles north of Havana, Cuba.
U.S. 1 begins in Key West and ends in Fort Kent, Maine after a
stretch of 2,209 miles. The weather in Key West is frost free and swept
by tradewinds making it South Florida's warmest in winter and coolest
in summer. The average daily temperature is 79°F. The highest recorded
temperature was 97°F in 1886 (although it does seem much hotter
at times). The lowest recorded temperature was 41°F, recorded in 1981.
The average rainfall is 39.9 inches. And the average consumption of beer
per visitor, is still being researched with great enthusiasm.
Today, Key West has approximately 35,000 residents and an estimated one
million tourists passing through annually.
Key West has a coral limestone base and the highest point on the island is 18 feet above mean sea level. The island has the only living coral reef in the continental U.S. and enjoys a natural deep water channel harbor in excess of 20 feet.
The name Key West is derived from the Spanish "Cayo Hueso" which translates into "Bone Key" and was phonetically wrangled by the English into "Key West". (I know, I don't understand that either.)
In 1513, Ponce de Leon discovered Key West and although he never set foot on it, claimed it for Spain. At the time, the island was inhabited by Calusa Indians. The Calusa are considered significant by historians and researchers because they achieved a high level of complexity without the benefits of agriculture.
As
hunter-gathers, they harvested their food from Southwest Florida's rich
estuarine environment. Although they eventually died out because of the
introduction of European diseases for which they had no natural immunities,
the Calusa succeeded in keeping their would-be Spanish conquerors at bay
for almost two hundred years. (Not bad for not even having a bottle of aspirin
to combat the plague.)
But in 1763,
England had captured Havana and Spain made a deal to trade Florida for Cuba
(talk about a great real estate transaction!). By 1783, the English couldn't maintain a strong enough settlement hold on Key West and Spain reclaimed the island. (The heat must have wreaked havoc on those powdered English wigs. Between the sweat and the powder you could end up walking around with a mound of dough on your head, and not the spending kind either.)
Then, in the late 1700s, Key West became a pirate's paradise because of its strategic location near Havana and the split of the shipping lanes between New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River and the United States' east coast. Among some of the mosts notorious pirates of that time were Captain Teach (a/k/a Blackbeard), Captain Kidd and Captain Black Caesar. These marauders even had their own fraternal name: "The Bretheren of the Coast".
In 1815, Don Juan de Estrada, at the time the Spanish governor of Key West, granted the island's deed to Juan P. Salas, of the Royal Artillery Corps, St. Augustine, for "unspecified" military services. But Salas was busy galavanting around the Carribbean and did nothing with his new island.
Then, in 1819 the U.S. established a government in Key West. Oh, oh. This made Senor Salas just a little nervous. So what does he do? One night he's in a Havana bar and sells Key West for $2,000 to John Simonton of Mobile, Alabama. Simonton, who sensed he'd better get all his paperwork straight, what with all the U.S./Spanish/English deeds and documents everywhere, goes to Washington to set things legit. There he meets the "other" owner of Key West, General John Geddes, who also bought Key West from Juan Salas. The outcome? Simonton's Washington "influences" proved to be better than Geddes'. By 1822 U.S. Congress had consolidated East and West Florida into the Territory of Florida and William P. Duval became the first civilian territorial governor. >>more
