April 8

Lumley & Roberts Hardware & Paints, 718 Caroline St., Key West, ca. 1965.

1898 – Chief Gunner’s Mate Oscar Johnson, a 31-year-old native of Sweden, was asphyxiated while in a diving suit examining the hull of the USS Newport. He was buried in the Battleship Maine Plot in the Key West Cemetery.

1928 – Pauline and Ernest Hemingway arrived in Key West for the first time on a Peninsular & Occidental steamship from Havana.

1945 – Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin W. Demeritt received word from the War Department that their son Ray E., who had been reported missing 10 months before when he bailed out of his plane over France, had died.

1970 – After 75 years of operation, the storm warning station at Lumley & Roberts Hardware Store was removed. The system used combinations of two white lights and a red light to indicate the severity of approaching storms. The U.S. Weather Bureau had installed the station in 1895.

1980 – Approximately 500 members of the Key West Cuban community joined an automobile caravan at the White Street pier to show support to the Cubans who had taken refuge in the Peruvian embassy in Havana. They made donations and sent a truck with nonperishable food to Miami to aid the refugees.

1985 – The cruise ship Bermuda Star was stranded 10 feet off Key West’s Mallory Dock after it got stuck on the bottom during low tide. The large ship managed to get underway about midnight, on the next high tide.

Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.

Image: Lumley & Roberts Hardware & Paints, 718 Caroline St., Key West, ca. 1965. Photo taken by Monroe County Property Appraiser's office. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.