Key West

Hemingway House

This significant Key West landmark was home to Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway.

Ernest M. Hemingway – The Legend

It was on the advice of John Dos Passos, a fellow member of the “Lost Generation” of ex-patriate artists and writers populating Paris during the 1920s, that Hemingway was first prompted to visit Key West. Hemingway did not go directly to South Florida from Paris, but rather arrived through Havana, Cuba—a city and country that would prove to be critically important in Hemingway’s later personal and professional life. Upon his arrival in Key West in April 1928, the first order of business was to locate the new Ford Roadster that Pauline Hemingway’s wealthy Uncle Gus had so generously purchased for the newlywed couple.

Mel Fisher Museum

The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is home to a large collection of materials recovered from the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita of 1622. On September 4, 1622, 28 ships left Havana, Cuba, bound for Spain. With them was carried the wealth of an empire. The following day, the fleet found itself being overtaken by a hurricane as it entered the Florida straits. These vessels lay broken on the ocean floor, scattered from the Marquesas Keys to the Dry Tortugas. In them were the treasures of the Americas, and the untold stories of scores of Spanish sailors, soldiers, noblemen, and clergy.