The train has left the station

[slideshow]One Island One Book, the Key West Library's program now in its third year, is well underway. This year we're reading "Last Train to Paradise," Les Standiford's book chronicling the construction of the Over-Sea Railroad, completed 100 years ago. The book also covers the railroad's destruction in the harrowing Labor Day hurricane of 1935. We're in the final week of the online readalong on the One Island One Book blog-- but you're welcome to jump in at any point; the beauty of this is it can stay up there forever for anyone reading the book and we can continue the conversation as long as we want.

Next week things really pick up when the author himself, Les Standiford, arrives in town. He'll be signing books at Key West Island Books, 513 Fleming St., at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Then at 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, he'll be at the Key West Library, 700 Fleming St., to talk about Last Train to Paradise. Later that day, at 6 p.m., he'll be speaking at the Friends of the Library Lecture Series at The Studios of Key West, 600 White St. Both those events are free and open to all.

We've already had a couple great events -- a presentation about how the old bridges went from rail to trail (many of them are now part of the Overseas Heritage Trail) and a guided tour of the Speedway to Sunshine exhibit at the Custom House. There's another tour planned for 2 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24 -- the tour is free but you need to sign up; just stop by the library or call 305-292-3595.  And if that weren't enough, the Art & Historical Society has generously offered free admission to the Custom House to anyone with a Monroe County Library card, until March 15.

Lots to do -- and still plenty of time to read the book. They have them on sale at Key West Island Books and we have many, many copies in the library collection (still a couple available on the special exhibit shelf last time I checked). So please stop by, in person or online, and help make this really One Island One Book.

Most of the action, thus far, as taken place online in our first online readalong but the live events have started, wtih a presentation on how the original railroad bridges went from rail to trail (many of them are now part of a state park called the Overseas Heritage Trail) and a special guided tour of the Speedway to Sunshine exhibit at the Custom House (there's another this Friday -- you can still sign up by coming into the library or calling there at 305-292-3595).

About those images: One of the most fun parts of this year's One Island One Book program, for me, has been spending time with our fabulous online archive of photographs. These are scanned, identified and uploaded by Monroe County Historian Tom Hambright and his team of dedicated volunteers. There are more than 11,000 images in the whole collection and 700 just related to the railroad. The slideshow above is a small sample of my favorites but I recommend checking this site out to anyone interested in Keys history. Another favorite from the same era I can't resist revisiting: the waterfront passes that were required of workers in that area during World War I. The photographs are haunting and beautiful and the information provides a time capsule of Key West life in that era.

The Over-Sea Railroad: You can no longer ridealong but you can still readalong

Exactly 100 years ago, Key West was in a tizzy, getting ready for the arrival of the First Train. On Jan. 22, 2012, the train would arrive bearing oil tycoon-turned-railroad magnate Henry Flagler and marking the completion of the Over-Sea Railroad. These days, we're in a bit of a tizzy ourselves, getting ready to commemorate the Centennial of that event -- a major one by the standards of any small town and, you could argue, in the history of Florida and the nation. It was certainly a remarkable achievement, crossing mangrove swamps and open water. Crews endured hurricanes, mosquitos and the relentless humidity of the subtropics -- without the modern comforts we take for granted now.

Lots of events are planned to mark the Centennial -- more information is available at the official Centennial committee's website. At the Key West Library, we're celebrating with our One Island One Book program. This year we're reading Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford, which tells the story of the construction of the Over-Sea Railroad -- and its destruction, barely two decades later, when the Upper Keys were hit by one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the continental U.S.

Most of our One Island One Book events don't start until mid-February -- Standiford will be speaking at the Library on Monday, Feb. 27. But one event is starting in the next few days: our first every online readalong. What does that mean? It means  you read about 50 pages a week of the book (there's a reading schedule on the blog), and comment about it at the blog. We'll start things out with some comments and questions but this isn't a class and our posts are not a syllabus -- everyone is welcome to chime in on whatever aspect they like, from wherever they are. So if you're curious about the railroad and feel like learning some more -- and interacting with others who are doing the same, please join in.

Some of you, especially those familiar with the Keys, may have noticed that the image above does not show Key West. It's Pigeon Key, the island in the bend of the Old Seven Mile Bridge (and one the best places these days to get a feel for how things were back in the railroad days). Even though it's not Key West, this is one of my favorite images of the railroad, probably because of the human element introduced by the kids waving below. And it comes from the library's spectacular collection of historic images that have been scanned and placed online for open public access -- including a collection of 700 images about the Over-Sea Railroad. Many of the library's images, incidentally, were used for a beautiful new Centennial edition of Last Train to Paradise, published by Books & Books and the Flagler Museum.

Change is in the air

If you're in Key West, you know that we just experienced The Change -- that marvelous moment each late October when the humidity suddenly drops considerably and you think, oh yeah -- that's why we live here. To me, this means reading weather -- more on the back deck than in summer (which is also reading weather, because it's too freaking hot to do anything active, only then it's inside in the air conditioning). Which means, yes, it's always reading weather. But the change of seasons and a couple of upcoming literary events have me thinking about changing up my reading list. And there are some good titles on the way if you want to take part:

1) The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss -- historical fiction set after the Revolutionary War, as the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians duke it out for the future direction of the young country and regular folks are collateral damage to some of the duking. It's the title for the November Book Bites Book Club at the Key West Library so we have lots of copies. The group meets Nov. 10 at the Library.

2) Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford -- it's going to be our One Island One Book choice for 2012, timed to the Centennial of the Overseas Railway reaching Key West. Les will be coming to talk about the book and we'll have other programs around that time -- there will be lots more information in the future at our One Island One Book blog. Bookmark it!

3) Any or all of the writers coming to the Key West Literary Seminar in January 2012 -- it's an amazing bunch especially if you're into the speculative fiction -- superstars like Margaret Atwood and William Gibson, Pulitzer Prizewinners like Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, new voices like Dexter Palmer and Charles Yu, guys with hot new zombie titles like Colson Whitehead. It's going to be extraordinary. It's sold out, I'm afraid, but there will be free sessions on Sunday afternoon, as always. And the Seminar will post the audio from as many sessions as we can on our ever-expanding archives.

So read, dammit!

Important anniversaries

This weekend is Labor Day. In the Florida Keys that usually means some commemoration of one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the continental United States -- the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. It swept across Islamorada in the Upper Keys and killed an estimated 408 people, many of them World War I vets working on a New Deal relief program to build a highway in the Keys. It also destroyed the Overseas Railway, Henry Flagler's final achievement, which connected the Keys to the mainland for good. The railroad was not financially worth rebuilding; much of the roadbed and most of the magnificent bridges were converted for use in the Overseas Highway. You can see a lot of them today, alongside the replacement bridges that were built in the 1970s and '80s. Why is this a topic for a book blog? For one thing, I have written many times about the railroad and interviewed survivors, for an oral history series I wrote for the Miami Herald in the 1990s and an oral history compilation I put together for the Herald's late, lamented Tropic Magazine. But more currently, my current employer the Monroe County Public Library has just posted more than 700 images related to the railroad to our Flickr account, and these images (including the one above) are something to see. Historian Tom Hambright wrote a blog post about the images and the railroad for our website [link to be provided once the library website recovers from whatever database affliction it is currently suffering].

The other anniversary is upcoming -- in 2012 we in the Keys will be marking the centennial of the railway reaching Key West -- on Jan. 22, 1912, Henry Flagler himself rode the "first train" onto the island and was greeted by, essentially, the entire town population. The Key West Art & Historical Society is already planning a major exhibit, which I can't wait to see, and I'm sure many other events will spring up. If you're looking for a readable account of the railroad's construction and destruction, I recommend Les Standiford's Last Train to Paradise. There are a bunch of others that focus solely on the hurricane; I like this one because it captures both ends of this epic, tragic story that changed and defined the Keys.