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Small-town fashionista caught drug dealing and escaped from court. Why is he still a legend 50 years later?
Small-town fashionista escapes court after being caught dealing drugs. Why is he still a legend 50 years later?
Bam Farto disappeared 48 years ago. He was the fire chief of Key West, Florida, but was best known as a fashionista, party animal, and voodoo follower. Then, after being convicted of drug trafficking, he fled and disappeared forever. Lenta.ru finds out why the myth of this man lives on and why modern fashionistas buy clothes in his name.
Key West is an amazing city in itself. It is the southernmost settlement in the continental United States and the only place in the country where the temperature has never dropped below zero. It is located on the southernmost island of the Florida Keys and is connected to the other islands and the mainland by a 100-mile (160 km) road bridge. Naturally, such places are full of tourists.
In late 1975, he was convicted of drug trafficking. Farto faced up to 30 years in prison. He did not wait for the final verdict. In February 1976, he rented a car and drove to the continent because he had urgent work to do, and then disappeared.
The Farto family immigrated from Spain to the southernmost part of the United States in 1902 and opened a small restaurant called the Victoria. Joseph Farto, later nicknamed Bam, was born in July 1919. He was the youngest of three children. Farto lived across from a fire station, and this became the boy's main passion.
He could spend hours looking at the red cars from the window. As a schoolboy, Farto would always play next to the firemen, who would initially chase him away. But soon they realized that the boy liked their work so much that they allowed him to come at any time. In addition, the firemen began to assign him small tasks, such as running for coffee or cleaning ammunition. It was then that he received the nickname Bam, which stuck with him for life. He was jokingly nicknamed "Beggar" because he was always asking to see something.
Farto also visited the site of a real fire for the first time when he was 10 years old. This is true without permission. He hid in a car that was about to leave, then turned into a "rabbit" and stopped at the site of the fire. After school, Farto tried several professions, but eventually received special training and in 1942 became a firefighter, like his childhood idol.
In fact, firefighting was his life's work. Farto quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a senior officer and, in 1964, a unit commander.
Farto was not only an excellent firefighter. He soon became one of Key West's most colorful residents. This man was known for his witty and cheerful personality. When not on duty, he would drive around town in a green Ford Galaxie, wearing only red clothes and pink sunglasses. On the side was engraved the phrase El Jefe, which means "the chef" in Spanish.
Moreover, Farto was a fanatical lover of gold chains and wore several of them. He also wore a gold watch and rings on almost every finger. His fire captain's badge was also made of gold and decorated with precious stones.
Moreover, the choice of red was not accidental. Farto was a devout believer and a practitioner of Santeria, an African religion that combined elements of Catholicism with traditional beliefs, including voodoo. Farto claimed that red wards off evil spirits.
He would turn off the lights or perform strange voodoo rituals right before his team's games to bring good luck. And on the weekends, we would party in clubs and bars with tourists and locals. This further cemented his reputation and reputation as one of Key West's most eccentric residents.
It wasn't easy to gain a reputation as an oddball in a resort town of 20,000. Since the early 20th century, it has become a favorite haunt of colorful personalities. For example, in the 1960s, Shel Silverstein, a famous children's writer, poet, cartoonist, and part-time Playboy cartoonist, lived here.
Under the palm trees of Key West lived Jimmy Buffett, the most famous country musician, who became famous as a hedonistic singer. He believed that all human passions should be immediately satisfied and encouraged a life of pleasure, for which he earned the nickname "The Island Escapist."
This bohemian crowd centered around the city's trendiest bar, Sloppy Joe's. It's still in business today and is a U.S. National Heritage Site. The establishment gained fame thanks to its famous regulars, one of the first of whom was Ernest Hemingway. The author bought a house in Key West in the 1930s and wrote his famous novels The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber there.
At the same time, Sloppy Joe himself has a surprising connection to Bam Farto. It was there that the Victorian restaurant operated for nearly 30 years by the future dock fireman's parents. During the Great Depression, the company became unprofitable, and Fartos sold it to Joe Russell, who opened a bar there in the early 1930s.
Farto has been accused of fraud on numerous occasions.
But in the 1960s, Farto's lover began to appear in increasingly criminal stories. As the fire chief, he seems to be completely confident in his own exceptionalism. In 1966, he was suspended from his post for a month on charges of embezzling city funds. The council quickly resolved the problem and brought Farto back into the fold.
In 1968, he was suspended again. It involved nine charges, one of which was that Farto tried to cash a counterfeit check for $90. The case was again suspended by the City Council. What made both of these stories interesting was that one of the leaders of the council was Farto's nephew.
In 1971, the fire chief crashed an ambulance but refused to let it through an intersection. That same month, in front of dozens of spectators, he jumped into a deep canal because he "wanted to cool off by taking it to the pool." Farto couldn't swim, so rescuers had to pull him out of the water.
It's worth noting that in the 1960s and '70s, Key West's city council was an interesting branch of government overall. Despite its iconic status, the ocean resort town wasn't exactly rolling in cash, and the government turned a blind eye to residents who were practically openly selling marijuana and cocaine to tourists.
As a result, drug trafficking became so widespread that even Florida Governor Reuben Askew noticed it in the mid-1970s. He decided to eradicate the infestation and contacted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
In September 1975, dozens of dealers were rounded up in a joint operation between the agency and local police. One of them was 54-year-old Fire Chief Bam Farto. Most notably, he was arrested along with Manny Jones, a prominent city lawyer and the police chief's son.
A crowd of 200 people gathered to watch the arrest of two prominent city figures. Moreover, among the onlookers was a well-known heroin dealer from Key West, who was immediately identified and captured in front of television cameras and reporters.
The trial was swift. Farto was found guilty in February 1976. He faces up to 31 years in prison. But he could not allow his brilliant career to end like this.
Farto was scheduled to begin serving his sentence in February. He was still free after posting bail earlier this month. On the 6th, he told his wife he was going to Miami to take care of urgent business and rented a car to head to the mainland, violating his agreement not to leave.
Bam Farto has not been seen since. A month later, the car was found abandoned in Miami. No search results found. That's when some enterprising businessman released the first T-shirt with the inscription "Where is Bam Farto?" Later, others appeared.
There are many theories about what happened to Farto. According to one version, he flew safely to Europe and hid in his ancestral homeland. At least locals claim that Manny Jones, who was arrested with Farto (his father managed to save him from a long sentence), walked around the city in a T-shirt with the following phrase: "Spain."
This inscription was a response to one of Farto's versions of his fate. Almost immediately, rumors began to spread around Key West that the drug dealer-firefighter was dealing with representatives of the same cartel, since he had revealed some of their secrets to the investigation or was an informant himself. However, there is no evidence of this.
Farto was never found.
Over the years, people have claimed to have seen Farto, with reports coming from all over the world. The most famous story occurred in 1980. Six residents of the Costa Rican village of Golfito reported seeing firefighters fleeing the U.S. Embassy. He was reportedly to receive a new passport. The FBI investigated the information and found it to be false.
However, according to one of the versions considered officially, Farto did live there, but in 1979 the Costa Rican authorities deported a significant number of foreigners. El Jefe is said to be among them.
Farto could theoretically celebrate his 105th birthday in 2024, but few believe the legendary Key West resident will be so lucky. And there is a T-shirt that says "Where's Bam Farto?" They are still being made today. It has become one of the most popular souvenirs of the city's resorts, with thousands of them sold not only on the streets but also online.
The fire chief's life has long been the stuff of urban legend. For example, at the Key West Fire Museum, visitors can see Farto's desk and some of his personal belongings behind glass. It's unlikely that the boy who once glanced at the red fire truck across the street could have dreamed that he would become an urban legend like Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett, but that's exactly what happened. Albeit in a very strange way.