Artwork of the Bull in Key WestHemingway on the west wall of the Bull in Key West, Florida
Every wall in the Bull has been painted with scenes depicting personalities that made Key West what it is. It has been fun for us to pick out the personalities. This scene is of Hemingway. His fishing, cock fighting, and boxing. The Old Man and the Sea was a novel written by Ernest Hemingway in 1951 while in Cuba. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961. Mel Fisher on wall of the Bull in Key West, Florida a tribute to the World's Greatest Treasure Hunter
Mel Fisher is the famed American treasure hunter best known for finding the 1622 wreck of the Spanish galleon Atocha. He discovered the wreck in, 1985. The estimated $450 million cache recovered, is commonly known as "The Atocha Motherlode". The Atocha Motherload included some 40 tons of gold and silver; there were some 114,000 of the Spanish silver coins known as "pieces of eight", gold coins, Colombian emeralds, gold and silver artifacts, and 1,000 silver bars. As large as it was, this was only roughly half of the treasure that went down with the Atocha. The wealthiest part of the ship, the stern castle, is yet to be found. Still missing are 300 silver bars and 8 bronze cannons, among other things. In addition to the Atocha, Fisher's company, also located remains of several shipwrecks in Florida waters, including the Atocha's sister galleon the Santa Margarita, lost in the same year. Although Mel Fisher passed away in 1998 he is a Key West institution. The Mel Fisher Museum in Old Town, Key West is still one of the areas best know tourist attractions.
Pink Cadallac with Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy on west wall of the Bull in Key West, Florida
I have NO CLUE the significance of this mural. It is a pink Cadillac being driven by President Kennedy. That is Khrushchev on the other side and Fidel Castor in the back seat. It may be a spoof, but I do not know. I do know that tensions between the US, Russia and Cuba were really, really tense during the Kennedy years. This may be a spoof on how serious things were here in Key West only 90-miles north of Cuba during those years. I will keep asking, but no one seems to know the answer. Spanish Treasure ships depicted on the wall of the Bull in Key West
At least I think these are Spanish Treasure Ships. Keep in mind that Spanish Treasure Ships were wrecked along the coast around Key West. Check out the murals presented on the walls of the Bull in Key West and see if you can piece together the history behind them.
The Rose Tattoo mural on the south wall of the Bull in Key West
The Rose Tattoo was a Tennessee Williams play. It opened on Broadway in 1951, and a film adaptation of the play was was filmed in Key West in 1956. The Rose Tattoo was about an Italian-American neighborhood in Louisiana that is disturbed when truck driver Rosario Delle Rose is killed by police while smuggling. His buxom widow Serafina miscarries, then over a period of years draws more and more into herself, trying to force her lovely teenaged daughter Rosa to do likewise. On one eventful day, Rose finally breaks away; Serafina learns of Rosario's affair with another woman; and a new carefree, handsome Italian truck driver enters her life. Burt Lancaster and Anna Magnani starred in the film version and I think that is Burt and Anna on the right side of this mural. I think that is Tennessee Williams with the glasses. OK, so why is Tennessee Williams and the Rose Tattoo on the wall at the Bull on Duval Street in Key West? It seems that Tennessee Williams was a regular visitor to Key West in 1941 and is said to have written the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire while staying in at the La Concha Hotel in Key West back in 1947. He bought a house in Key West in 1949 and listed Key West as his primary residence until his death in 1983. In contrast to Hemingway's grand house in Old Town, the Williams home at 1431 Duncan Street in the "unfashionable" New Town neighborhood is a very modest bungalow. The house is currently privately owned and not open to the public. The Academy Award–winning film version of his play The Rose Tattoo was shot on the island in 1956. The Tennessee Williams Theater is located on the campus of Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island. Williams had a series of rented homes all over the U.S., but the only home he owned was in Key West. Even though Hemingway and Williams were in Key West at the same time, they reportedly met only once—at Hemingway's Cuba home Finca Vigía. Memorable works of Tennessee Williams memorialized in mural on south wall of the Bull
And for those of you who may remember Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...... well that was written by Tennessee Williams as was the Glass Menagerie, Night of the Iguana, Suddenly Last Summer and Streetcar Named Desire. And now you know the story of the Rose Tattoo and Tennessee Williams as they relate to Key West. Henry Flagler and the Overseas Railway depicted on the North Wall of the Bull in Key West, Florida
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). The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed much of the railroad and killed hundreds of residents.. The Florida East Coast could not afford to restore the Overseas Railroad destroyed in that hurricane. The U.S. Government then converted and rebuilt the rail route as an automobile highway, which was completed in 1938 and became an extension of US Highway 1. The portion of US 1 through the Florida Keys is called the Overseas Highway. The particular portion of the old Overseas RR bridge that you see in the above picture is still standing as it parallels the new bridge over what is referred to as Seven Mile Bridge.
Click here for more Key West travellogsUntil next time remember how good life is. More Florida AdventuresSome Key West Adventures ** More 2012 Travel Adventures
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
Mike & Joyce Hendrix who we are We hope you liked this page. If you do you might be interested in some of our other Travel Adventures: Mike & Joyce Hendrix's home page Travel Adventures by Year ** Travel Adventures by State ** Plants ** Marine-Boats ** Geology ** Exciting Drives ** Cute Signs ** RV Subjects ** Miscellaneous Subjects
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