Ernest Hemingway

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his most famous novels while living in Key West.  While awaiting the delivery of a Ford roadster purchased by the uncle of his wife Pauline in 1928, the Ford dealership at 319 Whitehead Street insisted that the writer and his wife take up residence in an apartment located above the showroom.  Soon Hemingway established his routine of writing during the early mornings when the temperature was coolest, while taking time to explore his new surroundings in the afternoons.  He resumed work on a war story he had started on the passage to Key West.  The novel, published in the fall of 1929, was "A Farewell to Arms".

Hardware store owner Charles Thompson introduced Hemingway to deep-sea fishing.  Among the group who went fishing was Joe Russell (also known as Sloppy Joe) and Captain Eddie "Bra" Saunders.  Together with his old Paris friends, the men became known as "The Key West Mob".  The "Mob" would go fishing to the Dry Tortugas, Bimini, and Cuba for days and weeks at a time in pursuit of giant tuna and marlin.  Everyone in the mob had a nickname, and Hemingway wound up with "Papa".  

Numerous works by Hemingway were based on the people and places he encountered.  Hemingway's Key West was a town unlike any place he had ever experienced.  The town was filled with interesting people from the well-to-do, to the down-on-their-luck fishermen and wreckers.  Hemingway used most of these people in his novel To Have or Have Not, which is about Key West during the depression, and his only novel set in the United States.  His friend Joe Russell was reportedly the model for Freddy.  Portions of the original manuscript were found at Sloppy Joe's bar after his death. 

Pauline's rich uncle Gus Pfeiffer bought the 907 Whitehead Street house in 1931 as a wedding present.  Legend says the Hemingways installed a swimming pool for $20,000 in the late 1930s (equivalent to $300,000 today).  It was such a high price that Hemingway was said to have put a penny in the concrete, saying "Here, take the last penny I've got!".  The penny is still there.  

During his stay, he wrote or worked on Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and the "Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber". Pauline and Hemingway divorced in 1939, and Hemingway lived on and off in Key West for twelve years.  He once described it as the "St. Tropez for the Poor".  Later, he only occasionally visited while returning from Havana until his suicide in 1961.

What about the six-toed cats??

 The story goes that Hemingway made the acquaintance of a sea captain who owned an unusual six-toed tomcat.  Upon his departure from Key West, the captain presented the cat to Hemingway.  Today, many of the six-toed cats are the descendants of "Snowball" the original cat and are inhabitants of the Hemingway House, despite complaints by the US Dept of Agriculture that they are not kept free from visitor contact, and the Key West City Commission exempted the house from a law prohibiting more than four domestic animals per household. Today, there are about sixty cats cared for by the Hemingway Museum, a privately owned business.

Some of the local kitties:

Hairy Truman  Spencer Tracy  Charlie Chaplin Joan Crawford Sophia Loren

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