The most haunting piece of the archive comes from a notebook dated March 6, 1926. Inside was Hemingway’s first known short story, about a fictional trip to Ireland, written when he was 10 years old. It was here, amid bullfighting tickets, checks, newspaper clippings and letters from his lawyer, family members and friends like the writer John Dos Passos and artists Joan Miró and Waldo Peirce, that they discovered a stained brown notebook. Years ago, Betty and Toby’s son, Benjamin Bruce (known as Dink) and a local historian, Brewster Chamberlin, began creating an inventory of the haul in consultation with the Hemingway scholar Sandra Spanier. The trove of materials spent decades uncataloged in cardboard boxes and ammo storage containers, surviving hurricanes and floods. Toby Bruce was part of Hemingway’s inner circle for years, not only as his right-hand man, but also as his contractor, mechanic and sometime chauffeur.
He never returned to collect them.Īfter Hemingway’s death, his fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, went through the material, packed up what she wanted, and gave the rest to longtime friends, Betty and Telly Otto Bruce, known to his friends as Toby. What they did know was that in 1939, after his second marriage crumbled, Hemingway, a notorious pack rat, left his belongings in the storeroom of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, his favorite watering hole in Key West, Fla. And, although there are dozens of bars to choose from, here are the most interesting and iconic bars you should check out on your Key West bar crawl.For years, most Hemingway scholars could only salivate about the Bruce collection, uncertain of its exact contents or even location. Most bars are within walking distance from each other on the island’s main drag - Duval Street. The best part about Key West is that it’s easy to visit many great bars in one day and stumble back to your bed and breakfast (don’t drive - or even bike if you’re planning some day drinking). Some are haunted, and yes - some were actually frequented by Hemingway. Nevertheless, most of the bars in Key West still speak to the artist in all of us - they’re colorful, spiritual, and funky.
Walk into almost any bar and you’ll be regaled with “Hemingway drank here” signs - even if the bar opened just a few weeks ago. In between writing some of the greatest works of contemporary American fiction, Hemingway managed to drink…a lot. A young Hemingway wrote “A Farewell to Arms” in Key West when his car broke down in 1928, and stayed for a decade. Arguably, the most famous resident of Key West was Ernest Hemingway. Notable Key West residents have included John James Audubon, Tennessee Williams, and Jimmy Buffett at some point and Harry S. Key West is like no other city in the U.S. This westernmost island in the Florida Keys -and the Southernmost city in the contiguous United States- has since been a place for smugglers, pirates, poets, artists, bohemians, writers, and tourists who converge on this roughly four-square-mile city to escape from the everyday life of…well…anywhere else. When Ponce de Leon stumbled upon a piece of land in 1512, he named it Cayo Hueso, Bone Island. A Hemingway Daiquiri with Hemingway Photo: Laine Doss
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