The Streets Of Key West: A History Through Street Names

Just in case you wanted to know who Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Simonton etc. were...

amazon.com/dp/鈥e_pe_606_4987410_pe_ar_t6

Pjk

The Streets Of Key West: A History Through Street Names

Whitehead, Simonton, Greene, Mallory, Curry, Watlington, Tift, Wall and so many others. I drive on most of these guys everyday. :-)

Savannah and Key West are the two most %26#39;history aware%26#39; cities I%26#39;ve ever lived in. It%26#39;s very rich here and reaches back all the way to 1513 and Ponce De Leon. (A brutal warrior, governor of Puerto Rico, founder of the Gulf Stream and explorer of the east coast of Florida and the Keys)

The Streets Of Key West: A History Through Street Names

Although it%26#39;s known now as a myth, when I was a kid (a hundred years ago), Ponce de Leon was cited as the person who sought the Fountain of Youth. I%26#39;m still looking for it.....

susancs... Don%26#39;ttell anyone but it%26#39;s down here in Key West! (What else can account for forty and fifty year olds acting like twenty year olds??) :-)

If you plan on driving to Key West from Miami....

Read

';Last Train to Paradise'; by Les Standiford

amazon.com/Last-Train-Paradise-Spectacular-R鈥?/a>

There is no better travel guide than a well-written history lesson.

Thinking about this book as a Mothers Day gift, but my mom was born and raised in KW so I%26#39;m not sure how much of it she would already know about. Is the info in this book pretty well known to the locals??? Thanks.

If it%26#39;s the Stret names, FWIW I did not know one person who got a street named after them. And Last Train is a good read about trying to build something that had a very good chance of being blown or washed away before it was ever completed.

Just about any book about Key West or about the area or the ocean can be found at the Key West bookstore on Fleming. There is a rack of local books straight ahead as you walk in the door, and the Hemingway books are to your right.

Pjk

I was meaning the book on street names. Thanks.

Last Train To Paradise was, oddly enough, the first book I read after arriving here. It%26#39;s an outstanding story that goes into detail about the trials of doing %26#39;the Impossible%26#39;. considering the age that Flaggler lived and the equipment available at the time (Turn of the century), it%26#39;s amazing that so many of the bridges still stand today.

Second... Once here, I found I had a huge hole in my education. Don%26#39;t know how I missed it but... I bought %26#39;Old Man And The Sea%26#39;. It%26#39;s a short story by Hemingway and a pretty good movie with Spencer Tracy. If you want to get a little insight into the mind of Ernest, I don%26#39;t think there%26#39;s a better read.

Last Train To Paradise was, oddly enough, the first book I read after arriving here. It%26#39;s an outstanding story that goes into detail about the trials of doing %26#39;the Impossible%26#39;. considering the age that Flaggler lived and the equipment available at the time (Turn of the century), it%26#39;s amazing that so many of the bridges still stand today.

Second... Once here, I found I had a huge hole in my education. Don%26#39;t know how I missed it but... I bought %26#39;Old Man And The Sea%26#39;. It%26#39;s a short story by Hemingway and a pretty good movie with Spencer Tracy. If you want to get a little insight into the mind of Ernest, I don%26#39;t think there%26#39;s a better read.

[It%26#39;s good to see this happens to you, too]

Yes. Old Hem still had a few good lines as late as 1954...

';It was an hour before the first shark hit him.

The shark was not an accident. He had come up

from deep down in the water as the dark cloud

of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile

deep sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely

without caution that he broke the surface of the

water and was in the sun. Then he fell back into

the sea and picked up the scent and started

swimming on the course the skiff and the fish

had taken.

Sometimes he lost the scent. But he would pick

it up again, or have just a trace of it, and he

swam fast and hard on the course. He was a very

big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the

fastest fish in the sea and everything about

him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was

as blue as a sword fish%26#39;s and his belly was silver

and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was

built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws

which were tight shut now as he swam fast, just

under the surface with his high dorsal fin

knifing through the water without wavering.

Inside the closed double lip of his jaws all

of his eight rows of teeth were slanted inward.';

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

Pjk