A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Disney’s Old Key West Resort

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

DISNEY’S OLD KEY WEST RESORT

By Jim Korkis

In the early 1900s, the only way to get to Key West was by plane, boat or train. It was not accessible by car until many years later. That is why the check-in desk at Disney’s Old Key West Resort resembles a train station–with actual antique lampposts from Key West’s Duval Street.

After a guest passes the security gate, they drive over a bridge to suggest the bridges that have to be crossed to get to each of the fabled island Keys.

Just to the left of the check-in desk is a small lounge called Papa’s Den filled with books on shelves. “Papa” was the nickname of famed author Ernest Hemingway who supposedly wrote part of his novel A Farewell to Arms while living in Key West.

On either side of the fireplace are sets of framed pens, authentic to the early 1900s, to suggest Hemingway’s writing. The marlin fish handing overhead and vintage lures underneath suggest Hemingway’s love of fishing and his famous book The Old Man and the Sea.

Hemingway had a great love for cats, and so there are eight small statues of cats in the den as well. The two lion statues on the shelves reference his love of big game hunting, the bull his interest in bullfighting and running with the bulls. You’ll also find cigar boxes to hold his Cuban cigars and a hand bell to symbolize For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The fictional mayor of the town of Conch Flats is Cooter Trumbo, Esquire. “Cooter” is a call-out to a slang name for a turtle (turtles are a reoccurring theme in the resort) in the southeast United States, and “Trumbo” is for Trumbo Point, a man made addition to Key West in 1912 by the Trumbo American Dredging Company to accommodate a shipping port for the railroad.

The town’s logo includes an image of the city and three Latin phrases: Pro Bono Persona (For Your Own Good), Veni Vici Veni Adinfiintium (I Came. I Saw. I Stayed Forever) and Carpe Diem Omnidiem (Seize the Day Everyday.)

On the upper shelves and rafters of The Conch Flats General Store are items that reflect Old Key West’s history of wrecking and salvaging from nearby shipwrecks, making it the richest city in the United States at one time.

Turtle Krawl, sometimes spelled Kraal or Kraul, is an Afrikaans and Dutch word that refers to a corral for sea turtles that were often gathered in Key West for export and the making of turtle soup that was once considered a delicacy for the elite. In 1971, the United States government banned the killing of Green Sea Turtles, and today turtle soup is made from regular turtles.

That reference to the turtle industry is also in Old Turtle Pond Road and the Turtle Shack at the resort.

There is a lighthouse by the pool that calls to mind the famous Key West lighthouse opened in 1848 to help stop the inhabitants from causing shipwrecks.

Toward the end, the brick road ends and REST Beach begins. Key West, because of its hard coral, had man-made beaches. REST is actually an acronym for Recreation, Exercise, Swimming and Tennis.

The “family tree” just beyond the gigantic sand castle was planted in 1991 and is one tree with multiple trunks springing from it. To the left of it is a similar tree that was planted to show the original height the family tree was in 1991.

For those interested in more stories about Conch Flats, the resort offers a free guided walking tour most Wednesdays and Saturdays.

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Thanks, Jim! In the small world department, our home was built as the summer cottage of one of John Rockefeller’s bankers–a man who almost certainly would have known Henry Flagler in his Cleveland days, before he went to Florida and founded the railroad to Old Key West. Perhaps Flagler was even in our house once, long ago!

And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Secret Stories of Mickey Mouse, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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