The herald., 1898-06-19
KEY WEST

AiHuuS the pOlHtS VI lHtelesl Hdue
specially notable by the present war
none has been. nor is now, more fire.
quently in the public eye than Key West.
And yet we venture to remark that in the
minds of nineteen out of every twenty
of our readers the exact location of the
place is rather nebulous quantity.
Key West is a city of 22, 900 inhabitants,
built on the largest of a chain of reefs
or coral islets, extending about hundred
miles in a southwesterly curve from tho
extreme end of the peninsula of Florida
Dry Tortugas being the last of the chain.
The island is on the edge of the Gulf
Stream, and, being in latitude "a degrees
and 32 minutes is fairly within the trop-
les. 1t is fortified by, and is point of
strategic Importance to the United States
since it guards the channel through
which the Atlantic communicates with
the Gulf of Mexico.
During our civil war Key West was the
chief base of our navy in sustaining the
blockade of the southern states, and as
everybody knows, it is now the head
quarters of our army for the invasion of
Cuba, and the chief coaling station of
Schleys and Simpsons fleets.
Our soldiers at Key West easily fancy
themselves in foreign country. AS it
has been for years place of refuge fo1
patriotic Cubans, expelled from the Span
sh Antilles, the city resembles Havana
or some city of one of the South American
republics rather than it does any place
in the United States. The most important
of the elements that go to make up its
population, George Kennan tells US in his
STORY of the War" (The Outlook, are,
whites from the United States, who are
chiefly engaged in shipping or commerce,
Cubans of mixed blood employed for the
most part in the cigar factories, immi-
grants from the Bahamas, and negroea
from America. In Key West, says Mr..
Kennon, everything that meets the eye
seems new, unfamiliar and in some SUBJ
tie, indefinable way, un-American.
The Spanish and the Cuban types on
unfamiliar language which strikes the
ear al almost every step-all suggest a
tropical environment and Spanish rath-
er than American influences and charac-
teristics.
1t may be a surprise to most of our
readers to be told that in 1890 the ship
tonnage entering and clearing from the
vt of l.aI
and that since then the commercial ac-
tivity of the city has been steadily on
the increase.
The war will help rather than hurt
Key West. AS the rendezvous for many
thousand troops and for two powerful
fleets. the temporary loss of its normal
commerce will be abundantly comp.n-
sated for by the golden shower which
the government and the soldiers anG
sailors of the United States will pour into
the lap of the city during the war.
Nor is the climatic environment of
Key West at all to be dreaded. Its lowest
month, by mean temperature, during a
period of twenty years. is reported as 10
degrees Fahrenheit in January, and its
highest 81 degrees, in August, while the
average annual rainfall on the island is
about thirty inches. So with the aid of all
efficient quartermastership and a we'll
appointed commissariat there is no good
reason why the American boys at Key
West should not have fairly good time
While there, or passing through there,
IN route to thrash the boastng Dons.
or VIXEN returning homeward to tell how
well the work was done.