At Cayo Hueso

STATES & CITIES

Pirates called it Cayo Hueso which meant bone reef. English tongues twisted it into Key West. The flat little island, six miles long at the tip of the spiny archipelago which curves southwest from the Florida peninsula, was settled in 1822, the southernmost town in the continental U. S. The Cuban revolution of 1869 sent political refugees scudding across 90 miles of open water to Key West as a safe haven. A Cuban named Eduardo Hidalgo Gato started the first modern cigar factory there five years later and the community began its climb to prosperity.

A naval base and extensive fortifications were built to protect the "Gibraltar of America." From the military alone Key West merchants divided a $500,000 yearly payroll. Spongers from the Bahamas pried into the clear green waters with their long poles, brought up $375,000 worth of fine sponges each year. Shrimp fisheries boomed. And when Henry Morrison Flagler extended his Florida East Coast Railway on stilts across the coral keys in 1912, Key West was an important U. S. port handling cargoes that increased to $65,000,000 yearly.

In picturesque white stucco houses surrounded with jasmine and banana plants lived a prosperous population of 25,000 people. During the Spanish-American War, volunteers in blue and khaki slapPed mosquitoes, trained impatiently at Fort Taylor. During the World War, Key West again gained military prominence when a $2,500,000 submarine base was begun there. It was never commissioned, and not long after, Key West began to slip.

Greek sponge divers at Tarpon Springs wrecked the Key West sponge trade. Machinery replaced oldtime cigar makers, and Tampa replaced Key West as a centre of cigar manufacture. American Tobacco Co. moved its Key West plant first to Tampa, then to Trenton, N. J. In 1930. President Hoover decommissioned the naval station in the name of economy. The soldiers moved away, too. Pan American Airways out of Miami took the cream off the passenger traffic to Cuba. The Florida East Coast R. R. reduced its Key West schedule to one train a day and the Atlantic Coast Line cut its through New York-to-Key West sleepers down to two a week. Seatrains from New Orleans killed the Cuban freight business. The resort crowd drifted elsewhere.

Key West's handsome Casa Marina Hotel has not been open for two seasons. Hundreds of homes have been abandoned. A city which once had had 83 thriving business establishments was reduced to less than 25. Only one cigar factory was left from an industry which once employed 10,000 workers. A population of 18,000 has suffered a 33% reduction in ten years. Last week half the citizens of Key West were on Federal relief rolls when the City Council and officers of Monroe County petitioned Governor Sholtz to take over the local government. Poverty had whipped Key West to its knees.

Governor Sholtz passed the buck to State Relief Administrator Julius F. Stone Jr. "Reliever Stone figured it would cost $2,000,000 to dole Key West for another five years. "The thing to do," he announced, "is to make Key West so attractive as to revive the tourist trade. Key West should be the Bermuda of America.""

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