Month: June 2016

At last I had talked Peter into taking some cell phone photos of the Key West style Victorian houses on Eaton Street. They were built in the latter part of the nineteenth century when Key West was the richest city per capita in the United States. This was due to a large Cuban cigar making industry, when cigars were part of a gentleman’s persona and Cuban cigars were considered the best. There was also a very lucrative ship salvaging business. The Federal Wrecking Act of March 3, 1825 mandated that all property shipwrecked in these seas had to be brought to a US port of entry. In 1828, the U.S. established a Superior Court in Key West with maritime and admiralty jurisdiction. “…from December, 1824 to December, 1825 $293,353.00 of wrecked property…” was sold in Key West (History of Wrecking by Jerry Wilkinson)

As we headed down South to Whitehead we had to pass the huge ugly buoy at the Southernmost Point. I was amazed. There was a line of many dozens of people waiting in the hot noonday sun to have their photos taken with the thing. I wonder how many actually caught the expanse of ocean behind it. OK I’m ranting about the buoy again. Peter jumped out and took a photo of the queue.

As we go down Whitehead, we’ll stop at 509. This is the house we lived in when I was born. The main house under the pitch is a typical vernacular house, which is a two-story with a front porch on each level. There are many of these type houses in Key West. This one has a two-story addition probably added when it was renovated.

Further down Whitehead we turn onto Eaton Street where we will see some fine examples of typical conch architecture of the late nineteenth century. On the corner of Whitehead and Eaton is the front office for the Banyan Resort. The tree in front is a Royal Poinciana. They are all over Key West and are particularly beautiful this year, but we don’t miss the one that had the bees in it. Hurricane Wilma took its toll and it has taken a few years for the Poincianas to get going again.

Here is a house with a Widow’s Walk, where sea captains of salvaging boats could watch for foundering ships or wives wait for their husbands to return.

 

On the other side of the street a block down is the Artist House. It is thought to be a fine example of authentic Colonial Queen Anne Architecture.

The Donkey Milk House is at 613 Eaton. It is so named because the donkey’s that pulled the milk wagons around Key West were housed in the alley behind it.. Notice the gingerbread railings, which are seen in a lot of Key West houses of the era.

On the corner of Eaton and William is the Bahama House. John Bartlum, a prominent sea captain at the age of eighteen dismantled his 3000 square foot home on Green Turtle Key and sent all the parts to Key West. Why? Because a recent storm had caused a lot of damage to houses in Key West and there was a shortage of building lumber. The house is on the same site on which it was reconstructed.  Picture: (State Archives of Florida/McDonald)

At 712 Eaton is a beautiful and unusual house. It has an octagonal veranda.

Here is a typical Eyebrow House. You can see the windows barely peeking out from under the overhang. The next photo taken at an angle shows the windows.  These houses were designed this way to keep the sun away from the windows in order to keep the inside cooler.

The cigar factory workers lived in small houses called shotgun cottages. This was because the front door was to one side and led to a hall that went all the way to the back; so a shotgun blast would go right through. I could not find any of these houses on Eaton, but when we turned right onto White, there was a row of four on the right near Truman Avenue.

In the past few decades, many have lovingly restored these unique homes and live in them or have turned them into Bed and Breakfasts or restaurants.

There are many other homes like these in Key West. It gives an old world look to this lovely small city.

Memories are elusive. Do you really remember something, or did a parent telling you a story about you plant the memory there. Did you ever think back to your earliest memories? My very earliest memory was riding my tricycle onto the second story porch of our house on Whitehead Street. My second memory was going with my father to a bar.

Here is the story. When I was a barely walking 2 year old. I was bowlegged. My Aunt Blanche who lived in Jacksonville and was married to a doctor was visiting, was horrified and insisted on putting me in braces, which she paid for. When my father came home from work each day, my Mom would have me bathed and dressed and ready for my date with Dad. We would walk down the alley to a bar on Duval Street. My father told me that because of the braces, I would often fall on my bottom and he would come back and laugh and I would laugh as he set me back on my feet. My father and many others at the time taught their children how to deal with adversity. As we sat on the bar stools the bartender would give my father a beer and put some in a little shot glass for me. That’s the story as I remember it or as it was related to me. I’m really not sure which; a little of each I suspect. My mother who was the one who had to deal with putting on and taking off the braces told me that one day she took the braces and threw them as far as she could into the back yard in a fit of frustration. That’s another good way to deal with some things.

When I was three I watched my father putting up hurricane shutters on the house as a hurricane came through. They had to be nailed up individually and took some time and energy, as there were a lot of windows. I remember him saying that just about the time he got all the shutters up, the storm was over.

When I was five, I attended a kindergarten about two to three blocks away on the other side of United Street. I walked by myself to and from the school. One day when walking home, a plane flew fairly low overhead. I thought I could see a man in the open doorway. Then a few moments later I heard a crash. There were several empty and abandoned derelict houses with overgrown lots on my way home and in my mind the plane had crashed there. When I got home I told my mother and she sort of dismissed the whole idea and nothing more was said of it. All of my life I have wondered about it since I know I saw it.

When writing this I told my husband about the incident. He put Plane crash Key West 1951 into the search engine and the whole story was there. Here is a little of what was in the news following the incident.:

On 25 April, a Navy SNB-1 Kansan taking off from Naval Air Station Key West and a Pan American four-engine DC-4 operated by its affiliated company Compania Cubana de Aviacion on a flight from Miami to Havana collided over Key West about noon. Both planes crashed into the ocean with 43 persons. There were no known survivors. “The larger plane crashed about 1,000 yards offshore from the southern-most part of the Key West Island, within sight of the Casa Marina Hotel and the U.S. naval submarine base, site of President Truman’s little white house. The Navy fighter crashed on the other side of the island in the main ship channel.” (GenDisasters.com) A lot of sunbathers on the beach and one small girl walking home from a morning in kindergarten witnessed the incident.