Today in Keys History – October 31, 2024
1889 – Key West’s cigarmakers were on strike and the work stoppage was affecting other businesses on the island. After determining his presence in Key West was “detrimental,” the treasurer of the Cigarmakers’ Union was expelled from Key West and sent to Cuba by a group from the Board of Trade.
1895 – With reports of increased activities by Cuban insurgents from the Florida Keys, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior ordered the Revenue Cutters Winona and Morrill to patrol Keys waters and enforce U.S. neutrality laws to prevent assistance to Cuban rebels.
1924 – Customs agents at Key West were busy. In the overnight hours, they chased and captured a car carrying 100 gallons of aguardiente, and, later in the day, they destroyed 5,000 bottles of illegal booze seized in earlier raids.
1934 – The first 50 of an anticipated 300 World War I veterans arrived at Matecumbe Key to begin work for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration on a series of bridges for the Overseas Highway.
1946 – S.H. Kress announced that it would construct a two-story building adjoining its store on Duval Street at the corner of Fleming Street.
1950 – A crowd of about 1,000 people lined the streets to view the Halloween parade that had about 500 costumed school children.
1955 – Monroe County shrimp production for 1954 was about 13 million pounds on heads-on shrimp with a dock side value of about $4 million.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Workmen building a bridge for the second Overseas Highway. The Heritage House Collection, donated by the Campbell, Poirier, and Pound families. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.