Part of Key West's early history was written by members of two families: the Gatos and the Fuentes.</p><p>Eduardo Gato emigrated from Cuba to New York City and finally settled in Key West in 1884, where he set up a cigar factory. To attract talented cigar rollers from their native Cuba, Gato offered incentives like housing. Out of that was born Gatoville.</p><p>Arturo Fuente, patriarch of what is now the largest cigar manufacturing company in the world, escaped economic depression in Cuba in 1906 by coming to Key West. He joined other family members, living at 716 Elizabeth St..</p><p>One hundred twenty-five years later, descendents of both families are set to celebrate their shared heritage at ground zero - the Gato Village Pocket Park at 616 Louisa St., during a special unveiling Wednesday (Nov. 4) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. A $10 donation buys a Fuente cigar and entry to a wine tasting. Members of the Gato and Fuente families are scheduled to be on hand. The celebration includes an iconic emblem of Key West's cigar-manufacturing heritage -- a 12-foot metal sculpture being completed in time for the ceremony by longtime Keys artist Reen Stanhouse. </p><p>Stanhouse, whose work is featured at the Green Parrot bar and on elevators at the Freeman Justice Center, came to Key West 40 years ago after spending a long weekend here. "My mom cried for ten years, maybe fifteen," she said during an interview at her Cudjoe Key workshop, dubbed the Magic Ranch.</p><p>The process of shaping metal rods into what will be a giant cigar is art and industrial invention rolled into one. "The spiraling is presenting challenges," Stanhouse said. "You're starting with a flat rod and you have to make it look like something. You have to shape the metal."</p><p>She has a background in painting, illustrating and tilework and said metal incorporates all those different mediums. "I think it's from a past life," she said. "I don't know why, I'm just so in to it. People that are metal mongers, that's just what they want to mess with." Bruce Neff, who helped build a replica of Gatoville's cigar maker's cottage in the pocket park, watches Stanhouse and welder Joey Kissiah working at the artist's Cudjoe Key workshop, dubbed the Magic Ranch. "The way they are rolling it is sort of like how you'd roll an actual cigar," Neff said.</p><p>Neff's wife, Patricia Madiedo, is descended from the Gato family. The pair came up with the idea of a special way to preserve Key West's cigar manufacturing heritage last year and broke ground in December, after receiving approval from the Key West City Commission, the Art in Public Places Board and the Historical Architectural Review Commission.</p><p>As Stanhouse looks over paint color samples for the ash portion of the cigar (four feet of stainless steel mesh), she talks about the process of shaping the aluminum body and creating the bronze plaque, which will be the cigar band bearing the Gato family crest.</p><p>Stanhouse has been working with Neff and the Fuente (or Gato?) family for about one year on the design and fabrication of the public art project</p><p>Cigar industry scholar Glenn Westfall writes about the history of Key West and it's famous families in the cigar trade: "Gato formed a bustling, democratic community by offering affordable housing while encouraging private enterprise." Bakeries, social clubs and other trade-oriented shops sprang up in the neighborhood, located on Upper Duval Street and Simonton Street. Soon after his arrival in 1906, Fuente completed a cigar-rolling apprenticeship and applied for a job at the Gato factory. "What Arturo learned here other than cigar-making, he fell in love with the idea of Gatoville," Neff said. Fuente left Key West in 1912 and worked in Tampa, another center of the cigar industry, where he set up his own factory. His son Carlito eventually took over the family business and tried to expand production by setting up factories, all ending in failure, in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras. In 1980, the Fuente family finally established what remains their primary cigar making location in the Dominican Republic. "In 1998, Carlos Fuente felt obligated to do something for the people living adjacent to Chateau de la Fuente, creating the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation," Westfall wrote. "Cuban American entrepreneurialism born in Gatoville continued in the Dominican Republic." Since its inception, the Foundation has spread water purification systems to surrounding villages, previously hindered by water-related death and illness, and set up health clinics, play fields and schools--all in the tradition of Key West cigar luminary, Eduardo Gato. As if history repeats, Gato's cigar factory on Simonton Street is now home to Monroe County government offices and a showcase for artists and home to the Arts Council of the Florida Keys.