Graeme Teague Photography

Welcome - Key West!

Caption: Welcome - Key West!
Location: Key West, Florida.
Copyright: © Graeme Teague 832-526-1123 gtphoto@shaw.ca
AGPix ID: AGPix_GrTePh23_2007
Digital Original
Comments: Welcome sign as you come onto the Key - Key West, FL. Key West (Spanish: Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it constitutes the City of Key West. In October 1909, Key West was devastated by the 1909 Florida Keys hurricane. Further damage was suffered the following year in the 1910 Cuba hurricane. Key West was relatively isolated until 1912, when it was connected to the Florida mainland via the Overseas Railway extension of Henry M. Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway (FEC). Flagler created a landfill at Trumbo Point for his railyards.  The 1919 Florida Keys hurricane caused catastrophic damage to the city. On December 25, 1921, Manuel Cabeza was lynched by members of the Ku Klux Klan for living with a black woman. Pan American Airlines was founded in Key West, originally to fly visitors to Havana, in 1926. The airline contracted with the United States Postal Service in 1927 to deliver mail to and from Cuba and the United States. The mail route was known as the Key West, Florida - Havana Mail Route. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed much of the Overseas Railway and killed hundreds of residents, including around 400 World War I veterans who were living in camps and working on federal road and mosquito-control projects in the Middle Keys. The FEC could not afford to restore the railroad. The U.S. government then rebuilt the rail route as an automobile highway, completed in 1938, built atop many of the footings of the railroad. It became an extension of U.S. Route 1. The portion of U.S. 1 through the Keys is called the Overseas Highway.  Franklin Roosevelt toured the road in 1939. During WWII, more than 14,000 ships came through the island's harbor. The population, because of an influx of soldiers, sailors, laborers, and tourists, sometimes doubled or even tripled at times during the war. Starting in 1946, US President Harry S. Truman established a working vacation home in Key West, the Harry S. Truman Little White House, where he would spend 175 days of his presidency. In 1948, Key West suffered damage from two hurricanes within as many months, from the September 1948 Florida hurricane then the 1948 Miami hurricane. Prior to the Cuban revolution of 1959, there were regular ferry and airplane services between Key West and Havana. John F. Kennedy was to use "90 miles from Cuba" extensively in his speeches against Fidel Castro. Kennedy himself visited Key West a month after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1998 Hurricane Georges damaged the city. In 2017, Hurricane Irma caused substantial damage with wind and flooding, killing three people. GTPhoto is a major Florida agency with multiple resident photographers covering all subjects, whole state, with the Florida Keys & Key West absolute specialties.