True stories of writers and pirates, painters and potheads, guitar pickers and drug merchants in Key West in the 1970s. For Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was Paris in the twenties. For others, later, there was Greenwich Village, Big Sur, and Woodstock. But for an even later generation—one defined by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and Hunter S. Thompson—there was another moveable feast: Key West, Florida. The small town on the two-by-four-mile island has long been an artistic haven, a wild refuge for people of all persuasions, and the inspirational home for a league of great American writers. Some of the artists went there to be literary he-men. Some went to re-create themselves. Others just went to disappear—and succeeded. No matter what inspired the trip, Key West in the seventies was the right place at the right time, where and when an astonishing collection of artists wove a web of creative inspiration. Mile Marker Zero tells the story of how these writers and artists found their identities in Key West and maintained their friendships over the decades, despite oceans of booze and boatloads of pot, through serial marriages and sexual escapades, in that dangerous paradise. Unlike the “Lost Generation” of Paris in the twenties, we have a generation that invented, reinvented, and found itself at the unending cocktail party at the end—and the beginning—of America’s highway.

Blank 150 page lined journal for your thoughts, ideas, and inspiration.

Looks at an interesting era in the history of Key West, which became the creative center of the world for a number of writers, musicians and others in the 70s, including Jimmy Buffett, Hunter S. Thompson and more. By the author of Outlaw Journalist.

"Ogle captures this island city in all its quirky charm. Her story breezes along in typical Key West fashion--full of gossip and humor, with the jolt of a good cup of Cuban coffee."--Lee Irby, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg Parrotheads, Hemingway aficionados, and sun worshipers view Key West as a tropical paradise, and scores of writers have set tales of mystery and romance on the island. The city's real story--told by Maureen Ogle in this lively and engaging illustrated account--is as fabulous as fiction. In the early 1800s, the city's pioneer founders battled Indians, pirates, and deadly disease and created wealth beyond their imaginations. In the two centuries since, Key West has nurtured tragedy and triumph and has stood at the crossroads of American history. When Florida joined the Confederacy in 1861, Union troops seized control of strategically located Key West and city residents spent four years living under martial law. In the early 1890s, Key West Cubans helped Jose Marti launch the revolution that eventually ended Spain's control of their homeland. A few years later, the battleship Maine steamed out of Key West harbor on its last, tragic voyage. At the turn of the century, Henry Flagler astounded the entire country by building a technological marvel, an overseas railroad from mainland Florida to Key West, more than 100 miles long. In the 1920s and 1930s, painters, rumrunners, and writers (including Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost) discovered Key West. During World War II, the federal government and the military war machine permanently altered the island's landscape. In the second half of the 20th century, bohemians, hippies, gays, and jet-setters began writing a new chapter in Key West's social history. All of these personalities and events are wrapped in Ogle's unique and candid history of the island, an account that will fascinate past and present citizens of the Conch Republic, history buffs who like a well-told tale, and the millions of tourists from all over the world who love this colorful island city. Maureen Ogle is retired from the University of South Alabama.

Tired of working? Sick of the Rat Race? Feel like leaving it all behind? Your are one step closer just by picking up this book. Quit Your Job And Move To Key West is your complete guide on how to do it by people who have made it happen.

Hemingway in Key West, both as the writer and as the hard-driving sportsman, as well as his exploits in Bimini and Cuba.

Literary Nonfiction. Jewish Studies. History. 2017 Florida Book Award, Phillip and Dana Zimmerman Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction. The dramatic story of South Florida's oldest Jewish community and a major addition to the history of this unique island city. Long before Miami was on the map, Key West had Florida's largest economy and an influential Jewish community. Jews who settled here as peddlers in the nineteenth century joined a bilingual and progressive city that became the launching pad for the revolution that toppled the Spanish Empire in Cuba. As dozens of local Jews collaborated with José Martí's rebels, they built relationships that supported thriving Jewish communities in Key West and Havana at the turn of the twentieth century. During the 1920s, when anti-immigration hysteria swept the United States, Key West's Jews resisted the immigration quotas and established "the southernmost terminal of the Jewish underground," smuggling Jewish aliens in small boats across the Florida Straits to safety in Key West. But these and other Jewish exploits were kept secret as Ku Klux Klan leaders infiltrated local law enforcement and government. Many Jews left Key West during the 1930s and their stories were ignored or forgotten by the mythmakers that reinvented Key West as a tourist mecca. Arlo Haskell's THE JEWS OF KEY WEST is an entertaining and authoritative account of Key West's Jewish community from 1823-1969. Illustrated with over 100 images, it brings to life a history that had long been forgotten.