Key West: A Creative Atmosphere
Hibiscus, frangipani, orchid, passion flower, poinciana, oleander and lignum vitae make the island of Key West into a jungle of color. Sugar apple, custard apple, loursop, breadfruit, Spanish lime and sapodilla offer fruit flavors unknown to northern palates. The romance and history of other times is an integral part of the Key West mood of today, as these ghosts of the past live on.Once, cutthroat pirates preyed on the ships of the Spanish fleet and generations of wreckers earned their livings on Key West salvaging cargo from ships run aground on the then-treacherous reef.
A major point of interest in today's Key West is the Hemingway House, where Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel "To Have and Have Not" and many others. There is the Audebon House, where the famous ornithologist John J. Audebon was a guest while painting the birds of the Keys.
One of the major forces in American theater, Tennessee Williams, made Key West his home. He owned on old conch house on Duncan Street since 1949. Many of his plays were written here, including "The Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire". He once said, "Key West is a lovely place to work, also to rest. They seem like opposite things, but I find I can do both here."
Many other talented people have found Key West a good spot to be. Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett made his start in the downtown clubs, James Leo Herlihy wrote his Academy Award-winning screenplay "Midnight Cowboy" here, and poet Robert Frost lived for several months at the Casa Marina Hotel and visited often. President Harry Truman took a vacation to Key West aboard the presidential yacht "Williamsburg", and he came back ten times.
One of Hemingway's characters in "To Have and Have Not", an old Conch charterboat captain, Captain Willie, speaks about Key West to an out-of-towner: "Down here everybody aims to mind their own business."
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