The Key West Citizen Newspaper, December 3, 1946, Page 4

€ #2SCS- 2 OF> PAGE FOUR ' THE KEY WEST CITIZEN A VISITOR’S COMMENTS ON KEY WEST By A. H. ANDREWS, Editor “The American Eagle,” Estero, Fla. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an editorial which Mr. Andrews wrote after a recent trip to Key West and which appeared in “The American Eagle” of November 21. ee eee TTT as DEMOLEYS TO MEET The Robert J. Perry Chapter Order of DeMoley, will put on the Initiatory Degree, at 8:00 o’clock tonight, in the Scottish Rite Hall. MEETINGS |New York Paper Indicates Record Tourist Season In Store For, Florida! A Florida tourist season which lines to the state, is filled until {may break last year’s record mi-|Jan.2. As many as 180 telephones gration to the Sun State is fore-' blink simultaneously each morn- cast in an article carried by the !.ing when the Pennsylvania Rail- “New York Herald-Tribune” last | road opens its reservation switch- Not Much He was attending a meeting of the Henpecked Club. Suddenly the door opened. His wife sailed in, grabbed him by the collar, shook him until his teeth rattled, Marshalls Announce Birth Mr. Andrews’ second article on Key West is awaited with interest.) To the Jumping-Off Place* of the U. By A. H. Andrews OME FOLKS and move} according to plans and speci-{ fications, even going to the length | of consulting the stars as to whether they are in favorable | configuration before starting on a] journey, But as for me, I much dislike a planned stence. Weeks in advance you may plan| a week-end trip to some point of} interest only to have your pro- gram upset at the last minute by business matters, motor trou- | ble, rainy weather or an unex-| pected visit from your mother-in- | law. In former years we used} to speak of an enjoyable trip as “a blowout,” but in. these days} travel, a blowout is/ last thing to be de- live of motor about the sired Bobby Burns once said, “The; best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee,” which translat- ed into an Americanized version, would probably read something like this: “The best laid plans of mice and men too often go hay- wire.” And Bobby surely said a mouthful. How much more en- joyable it is to jog along a bit with the daily program, then| suddenly surprise yourself by do- ing something or going some- where that you had not definitely planned to do? Here Years Ago 1 had been at Key West but once some years ago, and when I started out for Miami before sunrise on Saturday November 9th, had no definite idea of going | elsewhere. The sun arose in aj cloudy sky. Later a dense gray! pall of fog drifted in from the. southeast and hung like a dark! ain o’er the celestial lumin-, y. It seemed that we were) surely in for a rainy day. As} though a fairy had 1 her magic wand, the sky suddenly cleared; the sun shone brightly; the weather was mild and de- lightful; the motcr functioning perfectly. The question arose In my mind, “Then why not Key West?” The idea quite appealed} to me and it was so decided then and there | In motoring from the West; Coast to the Island City many] miles can be saved by leaving the Tamiami Trail at Krome Avenue, | being the first hard surfaced road, that you encounter after rounding the big curve in Dade County.| It is easily recognized by the row of Australian Pine trees that line its course through the muck land. It is exactly twenty miles from ail to the business center of lomestead by way of Krome! venue, which is the main busi- ness street of the town ROOM MOTHERS MEET Room Mothers of the Junior and Senior High School Parent- Teachers Association will hold their regular meeting tonight at 8 o'clock. at the home of Mrs. Ted Canova, 3400 Avenue E. —— (PIPL LP £2 Ld Disney Hunting For Leprechaun Lore In England kerchief,palm-studded isle with a few tourist cottages, access to AP Newsfeatures > which being attained by a steep ONDON.—Walt Disney o!-|,,mp for convenience of visiting rived on the Queen Eliza-| motorists. beth recently, all set for @| Leaving Bahia Honda, one en- leprechaun hunt, and pitched | counters one of the big thrills of camp at the Savoy with athe trip. The old railroad bridge! caravan of writers, animators originally connecting this island} and publicity men. |with Big Pine Key, and over| Disney’s hunting costume was/ which the highway is routed, con-| a robin’s egg blue suit and an ‘cisted of several high trussed} Agua Caliente tie. He was off im-|gpans, too narrow for the high-| mediately, he told the embled |, » and too lengthy to split, as! British press, in quest of atmos-!was done with the short bridge phere and leprechaun lore for a at Lower Matecumbe. Engineers mew Movie. solved the problem by routing The man from Hollywood said |the highway over the top of the | he had been “looking into” Alice | pridge trusses and now the pas in Wonderland, too, with a view! ing motorist rides for some di to making her a movie queen. lance at a height of 65 feet abo “Not with an American accent,| the water with a wide expanse of} I hope,” said a British woman open sea on both sides. critic, caustically. “I mean—Alice| Big Pine Key, the only island | speaking American—really!” !on which native pine trees were} “I don’t want to hurt anybody's | noted, was at one time terminus | feelings,” Disney soothed. “Alice ' of the ferry road running north| will have an international ac-' from Key West which was built cent.” jby the county commissioners of ’ }/Monroe County after abandon- y hk hehcheudatadeaerne of the Overseas Railway tin a frantic attempt to keep the) jIsland City in close touch with} the mainland. From here at reg-| ular intervals plied large ferry- boats transporting motor vehicles | to and from Lower Matecumbe until completion of this gap in ment of Tavernier is reachd a the lower end. Next comes Plantation Key, so named because of pineapple fields that existed there many years ago, thaugh little signs of development are now seen. Wind- ley’s Island, of almost solid rock |the Overseas Highway. formation, is the site of an ex-| Though theoretically for more tensive rock pit wheer gigantic than a century part and parcel of blocks of coquina rock are quar-|this great country and at one time ried for building purposes. Much county seat of the mainland area of this rock was employed in con-|now known as Lee County, the struction of the post office build-| isolated city of Key West never) ing in Fort Myers. physically joined the United Succession Of Bridges States until completion of the Overseas Railway. The wreckage From Upper Matecumbe on] and abandonment of the railway there is one continuous succession i Fi A lwas a great blow to the city, and of concrete bridges and filled as before stated, the . Monroe causeways connecting island after County commissioners made a island. The bridges are of con-' frantic effort to restore commun- crete with stout guard-rails set inj ication by the construction of that} masonry and a clearance of some | fer-y road to Big Pine Key. It teen feet of driveway between, : . Almost any day that you may pass that way you are likely to find the bridge-ends lined with tourist fishermen who seem to think these structures primarily constructed for their conven- ience, and it requires careful! Oy Big Pine Key is the lower driving’ at times to avoid them. | toll station, at which point a fee For much of the way there is of one dollar is collected from| water on’ one or both sides. In/northbound traffic. Farther on| bright sunlight the shoal waters! at the right is noted the detour | are a veritable kaleidoscope of |jeading to the old ferry road, now inbelievable — rainbow —hues—/abandoned. This island is very| milky white, gray, varying shades jarge, but there is little develop-| of light to dark green, pale to/ment observed from the main dark shades of navy blue, purple highway. From here on south- {was an heroic job involying more ‘than forty miles of harrow road jwith hairpin turns and long wooden bridges, but it served the purpose until final completion of the Overseas Highway. One Dollar Toll Reach Overseas Highway Here you contact the Overseas | Highway, the only other main-| land settlement being Florida} City seve miles to the south. } From there on y motor for many mile through wet marl} pra ted t and there| with 1 hammock _ islands, ’ re ng in appearance th wck prairies of the lower] Evergladc At interva are country vads to the eastward jeading ns along the coast. | \. y the general et act « to open tic swam o: 1 ind thieket f mene bust There are} me twenty n monot- } onow: r 1 reach the t > CAUSE way an » Key Larg Y wonder t ) Vast ‘ Pe y to hold the w BC « » knows? Key Larg t in the Kieal hair a Keys t Z the O as High the ¢ K Ww n nnot be pu i lime gro t which tt i 3 several and magenta,—an_ ever-shifting ward the islands come thick and chromatic panorama produced by!fast—a regular bunch of keys. varying depths of sea bottom and With many you are no sooner on} coloring of submarine vegetation: | one than you see the bridge ahead | 1 picture to delight the soul of jeading to the next. Only on lit- | camps jand forth as oce Sunday. The story follows: “The annual exodus to Florida | is on. It commenced so early this | year that tourist authorities read-' ily admitted yesterday that last year’s record migration and spending orgies are certain to be shattered this vacation season. j “At present, 7,000 persons liv-! ing ,in the New York vicinity, it Pigeon Key, a little pocket-hand-/js estimated, are leaving daily for! | Florida’s sunny resorts. That fig- ure is expected to swell by sev- eral thousand more two weeks prior to the Christmas holidays. | Transportation scarcity probably prevents thousands more from Pp ng a holiday amid the orange blossoms. “Railroad officials said yester- day they are now carrying about 3,500 passengers a day on nearly | a score of Florida trains leaving the city—thirteen of them de luxe! through specials. As in pre-war years, additional trains will be added Dec. 12, regardless of any prolonged coal strike, they as- serted. ' “Except for a few upper berths and chair car accommodations all space on the Atlantic Coas Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railroad; the two principal and there motorist to di On adjacent Stock Island-are! where _ trailerites , moor their houses on wheels during a winter’s sojourn, commuting back sion demands to nearby Key West. One more short bridge gap and one is on the island of Ki West,—origin- ally “Cayo Hueso”, being Spanish for “Bone Key”, and so named because of great quantities of hu- man bones seen there by the early explorers, the name being la corrupted into “Key West”. | You enter the Island City in a southwesterly direction over Roosevelt Boulevard, a magnifi- cent wide highway skirting the northerly shore line with its wide, concrete walks and rows of coco- nut palms, and on the opposite side enclosing a great salt bayou with acres of mangrove swamp lands, some day to be filled in, pewhaps, to accommodate city ex- pansion. Roosevelt Boulevard merges into Division Street, one of, but several wide streets in the city. A right-hand turn at a traf- fic light brought me into Duval, the one-way main business street and I came to anchor, so to speak, just beyond the La Concha Hotel, in Key West, a colorful sym- phony in many (Florida) Keys, just six and one-half hours from the time of leaving Estero. Lack of space precludes mention of my stay in quaint old Key West, which will be. continued in our next.— (To Be Puretest LENAMINS Twe tiny capsules contain ALL VITAMINS Continued) an artist and the like of which is tle inlets adjacent to the highway rarely encountered elsewhere. do you see any signs of develop- When crossing the bridge from) ment, except that in several in-| Upper to Lower Matecumbe a) stances some plethoric would-be small island is noted off to the left, being Indian Key where Dr Henry Robinson Crusoe has seized upon | an adjacent islet, built him a} Perrine, a noted botanist,! causeway thereto and a mansion, of 1935. The upper toll 4 r 1 gate is this island,—fare $1.00. ° Near the center of the long ocated on bridge connecting Lower Mate- Relieve misery, as most mothers ' cumbe with Long Key the high-| qo. Rub the way construction engineers en-| throat, chest IiCKS and back with countered a trussed span of the} bridge that was too) time-tested VapoRus | the roadway to go $$$ _____—__—_ PL y splitting the bridge length- ! and widened it to confor WATCH FOR DATE the required right of way of MAXWELL’S ruly a remarkable feat of eng Sensational SALE SALES Next comes Grassy Key, and smaller ones, with little then Key Vacas, near the lower end of which be ing Marathon, largest settlement on the island route, with stores, hotel, filling stations, lunch rooms and even a chamber of commerce. Connecting Key Vacas with Ba- hia Honda is Seven-Mile Bridge, of all, spanning Moser} I recall that it took me minutes to development: longest cross it at 3 hird of the wav throug encounters koowa to be essential to human gutcition, plus liver and iron, 72's $2.59 — « Rexall mooucr ~_288's $7.95 GARDNER'S PHARMACY | jhad established a settlement, with | there living in isolated grandeur,| _ 1114 Division St., Cor. Varela | ¢Yellowtails eJewfish post office, docks and commis-| monarch of all he surveys Phone 177 Free Delivery | eSnappers e@Groupers y, and was massacred by the) In the next five nova: |"!!! [IT ———_s_ cvvevwvevvvuvvvvwy | Seminoles more than a century} islands there is practically no de-| ~ = e ae : go. |velopment, being almost as wild | Prior to construction of the)as nature made them, but on en- Overseas Highway Lower Mate-|tering Boca Chica, some eight H cumbe was the northern terminus| miles north of Key West, a verit- | f the ferry from Big Pine Key—|able little city looms ahead. It is | the only connecting link between; the coast guard base with its, | Key West and the mainland fol-|scores of buildings, large and j owing destruction of the Over-|small, spread out over many acres, | seas Railway by the hurricane.|scores of seaplanes lined up on It here also that many WPA| the beach and two gigantic “fish” | 14M PROUD OF workers employed in construc-| (blimps) at their moorings | tion ok ite Overseas Highway | tries patrol the highway frontage | MY SAFETY AND drowned by the tidal wave! — the t COURTESY RECORD WE KNOW WHERE OUR MONEY GOES WITH AN ECONOMY CHECKING No minimum balance Check books free No maintena Only a few cents per check or deposit FLORIDA N at Key slag E Member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Member of Florida Nati SANCHEZ board and doles out a few can-| cellations of choice space. | “The situation, of course, is' Newfoundland Lets even worse on the air lines. Res-! ervations began mounting early in September at the Eastern Air Lines, which now operates four- teen planes daily to Miami aad plans to put several more into ser Bee. 1, ‘The air line has long waiting lists for plane s with regular| ¢ Thess a passenger mapifegts aljea@y filled | a, ie. gavernment, estimating until after the first df the year! | "Pat. the beaver population now “In Florida, itself, the gaming | 2S reached 50,000, has decided counters, hotels, night clubs and| ‘© issue beaver hunting licenses horse and dog tracks are waiting |t© about 600 trappers. Each will with open arms for the holiday-| be allowed to take 10 pelts, ers, who are expected to spend! Which will be turned over to the , Trappers Take Beavers ST.. JOHNS, Newfoundland.— | (AP)—For the first time in 23 | years the Newfoundland govern- ment has decided to permit the hunting of beaver which in 1923 were threatened with extermina- tion. well over $1,000,000,000 before the | department of natural resources | son closes April 15. for marketing. ‘The Miami Herald, in a re-} On deliver. cent article, said that 4,000,000|be paid $ persons visited the state in 1945, spending nearly — $1,000,000,000.| that each pelt will bring about The newspaper predicts this year’s | $40, population influx and monetary | spree will certainly exceed last Good Essay ye “Many hotels at Palm Beach, ic EE pe Uava ete eyOUs RED Miami and St. Petersburg opened | Sten seicolay ens Nov. 15—a full month ahead of| Willie: “Teacher the normal time—to accommo-| Write an date the visitors. However, New | Laziness,’ and I turned in a blank York representatives of many | Sheet of paper.” Florida hotels declined yesterday | 7 to Predict a recordseason; I 7 “According to Harr; Paul-| + S d Th sen, president of the, eeu | tran eater Society of Travel Agents,‘ the} © ELEANOR PARKER in Florida -holiday season’ will be} “Of Human Bondage” ‘very active’. ; iris” “People have money, and a de- Coming}: Toei HanversGuis sire to go places will allow them the trapper will a pelt—the balance told us to to spend a tremendous lot of it,’}] ¢@ i he said. ‘The urge to keep up} wil the Joneses should make| Monroe Theater ‘lorida’s season very rosper-} i ac ve BrOsp WILLIAM POWELL in “Hoodlum Saint” “South of Rio Grande” eceeconcsesoeooes | So, Wat's The Use? “As I understand it,” said the heathen, “you propose to civilize | senaelly so.” | WHAT BETTER GIFT THAN ou mean to get me out of} THE LASTING CHARM habits of idleness and teach me to work?” | CEA Music “That's the idea.” | ing “And then lead me to simplify | Everything my methods and invent things to) Musical i make my work lighter?” after marketing. It is estimated! y on ‘The Result of | rT Mr, and Mrs. William L, Mar-|@nd exclaimed: “What do you shall, 510 Petronia street, an-| mean by attending this club? |nounce the birth of a nine-pound | You're not henpecked.” daughter at 5 a. m., today. Sana — ELTOLEELLEE DERE S LOI GALA FIESTA Tomorrow, 7:30 P.M. =a Parish Center ADMISSION .... . $1.20 Door Prize | BOUDOIR CHAIR Benefit St. Mary's Church and Diocese Orphanages aise i | Where You Can Shop for Your Little Folks and Silk Panties @ Tw Corde bor i } | ° enw Jumpers - 8 ePajamaxs @Silkh Ankh | Beautiful Imported Dresses and | Suits. USE OUR LAY-A-WAY PLAS “Your Child's Appearance | Is Our Business” | MR. and MRS. B,J. RUEDA Dy eh. t : | 10 O’THE MORNING FLIGHTS! | (DAILY AT7:40°AM MIAMI 54 MINUTES. $595 ONF WAY+ PLUS TAX ALSO DAILY PLIGHTS AT 4:15 PM AND 8:24 PM ) *BREAKFAST ALOFT © NATIONAL AV ATRLINE ROUTE OF THE BUCCAMLE i And next I shall! become am- | THE MUSIC BOX bitious and get rich, so I shan’t > Ie ‘ have to Work “at taMrs + ratty Tapsmaval Stage! SS. Biune > “Naturally.” “Well, what's the use of taking | such a roundabout way of get-} ting just where I started? I don’t have to work now.” SOON, aE, Your Grocer SELLS That GOOD STAR * BRAND and CUBAN Try A Pound Today!! | | une cp RS (ABAD DDAADAADADES | FISH MARKET | Foot of VIRGINIA STREET | at Bayview Park eLight Hand Fishing TACKLE eMullet, Shiners and Crawfish BAIT Also A Complete Line of FRESH FISH | This same state Safety and courtesy is the po company. We make every effort t on schedule destination comfortably, safel and on-time. Co-operate by h fare ready when you board bus. ACCOUNT nce charge “A City Is Only As Progressiv As Its Transportation System” ATIONAL West ae Key West Transit Co.,Inc J. W. Sellers, Manager onal Group of Banks Phone 1057 by each and everyone of our bus drive “, ng your 510 SOUTHARD STREET TELEPHONE OR YOUR TRAVEL ABEN® be m ‘ P) licy of t to get you to your EN BUS FARES Buses. ~ a Downtown Routes 2 and 3 e Poinciana and | Naval Hospital Oe City Hospital Stock Island and Boca Chica Le Da eee eee rca