1885 – The 1885 Florida State Census listed the population of Key West as 13,558. The birthplaces of the people in the census were Key West/Florida 43%, Cuba 33%, and the Bahamas 24%. The census reported a total work force of 4,895. The largest number of those employed, 2,035, worked in the cigar industry. The next occupation was seaman, followed by washwomen 542, laborers 283, and carpenters 195.
1898 – The Spanish Naval Court of Inquiry submitted to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Long it results that found the Battleship Maine was destroyed by an internal explosion.
1925 – Construction of the La Concha Hotel reached the sixth floor, and a large crowd gathered at the corner of Fleming and Duval streets to watch “the cowboys of the skies” put the steel beams and columns into place.
1961 – President John F. Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met in Key West to discuss the increasingly serious situation in Southeast Asia.
1963 – Bernice Daniel purchased the Hemingway House on Whitehead Street in Key West.
1994 – Former Key West resident Charles A. Allen Jr. was memorialized when the Fort Polk Library was named the First Sergeant Charles A. Allen Jr. Library. Allen graduated from Key West High School and joined the Army in 1966. He retired in 1984 and died in 1985.
1995 – An oil spill 3 miles long by 1 1/2 miles wide was drifting south of Looe Key. Cleaning crews were on site and were expected to remove it before it could damage the reef.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and Florida Senator George Smathers at NAS Key West on March 26, 1961. From the Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.