The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1947-03-13

sidelight on eorly Key West
history.
We went up Flagler Avenue in
Mr.. Johnson's car-there was nc
boulevard then around the is
land-and pioneered across caked
remnants of the early salt ponds
to the great entrance on the
northwest face of the double
walled brick fortification.
Jim directed me to use caution
in climbing the circular stairs to
the parapet and shortly we stood
there among the corroded metal
of ancient gun emplacementS on
the ocean faces of the bastile.
Never had it been our privilege to
see fort of that type, and the
study of it intrigued me. The
sixth sense attributed to newspa-
per people was quickly at work
in the writer and with the assist
ance of Judge Jefferson B..
Brownies key West, the Old and
the New, and references at the
Public Library, considerable ma
terial was secured about the Mar
tello Towers which has been of
great value in the preparation of
articles concerning the earlier
Key West through a period of
more than q years.
Towers and Fort Taylor
There is an intimate connection
between the East and West Mar
tello Towers and old Fort Taylor
because when the war between
the States opened with the firing
on Sumter in 1861, material for
the towers was carried on little
railroad from the Fort Taylor
wharf to the West Tower, ada
cent now to the grounds of Casa
Marina hotel; and through that
fortification to the East Tower
two miles further up-island.
This was the pioneering rail-
road on the island and it came
because the Government saw the
strategic location of Key West
before the internal struggle start
ed. Ia horse-car railroad came
to the city in 1894, the electric
railway in 1900, and the Florida
East Coast Extension was opened
January %, 19l2-and was aban-
doned following the memorable
up-Keys hurricane of Labor Day,
1855.
The second tower, or East Mar
tello, as. it is more Familiarity
known to Key Westers, is in an
excellent state of preservation
The railroad passed through both
structures. This writer a few
years ago secured from the files
of the War Department at Wash
ington photostatic copies of the
original plans for the towers with
the line of railway extending
through them from Fort Taylor.
1t was a short little line, but COM
pletely equipped with steam loco
motives, cars and switches, and
during construction of the Tow
ers there was no buster section
OF railroad in the world.
Children Rode Sundays
Sundays the workmen used to
give great pleasure to the chill
dren of that Key West of the
Yesterdays by allowing them to
ride from the Fort to and through
the Towers to the end of the
line, and back again. Probably
nobody is alive in Key West to-
day who was youngster then,
but the tradition lives in the
hearts and minds of numerous of
their descendants.
Not trace of the railroad re-
mains, and succeeding years have
greatly changed the shore line. A
few years after this writer first
saw East Martello he went there
again with Capt. and Mrs. Clark
ID. Stearns. The captain, now
gone, was commandant at the
Key West Naval Station, and nv
wife and were the Stearns'
guests. (The night of the 1926
hurricane, Capt. and Mrs. Stearns
were guests in our home at Med
ford, Massachusetts. A telegram
next morning said they had lost
much personal property in the
wrecking on the Miami river of
the Household 'Everglades"
owned by Col. Robert M. Thomp-
son, which they had left during
occupancy with caretaker for a
few weeks to visit friends in the
North.)
(Mrs. Stearns directed me
through an embrasure on the
ocean side of the fortification and
suggested l pick up some of the
sponge-baskets lying at the wa
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