March 6

The highway ferry Florida Keys entering a ferry slip, ca. 1930.

1924 – Alfred Atchison, 64, died in his home on Olivia Street. Atchison was known by the nickname “Bubba Smart” and was the last man to be called the “King of the Wreckers.”

1929 – The Overseas Highway from the Dade County line to Key West was taken over by the state road department for maintenance. The county had maintained the road built with Monroe County bonds.

1930 – County Commissioners sold the Monroe County highway ferry system that spanned the road’s water gaps to Clifton G. Bailey, county engineer, to begin private operation of the ferries.

1940 – The electrification of the Florida Keys from Stock Island to Key Largo took a large step forward after a meeting of the Florida Keys Electric Co-operative Association at the Tavernier Theater garnered 220 of the minimum 250 applicants needed for the project to move forward.

1969 – The National Society of the United States Daughters of 1812 placed markers on the graves of two veterans of the War of 1812 buried in the Key West Cemetery. The markers were placed on the graves of Thomas Romer, who was born in Nassau in 1783 and died in Key West on September 8, 1891, and Alexander Patterson, who was born in Stonington, Connecticut on August 31, 1791 and died in Key West on May 18, 1870.

2005 – Monroe County officials began to explore a one-year moratorium on the elimination of mobile home and trailer parks after receiving multiple redevelopment proposals for trailer parks on Stock Island. 

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

Image: The highway ferry Florida Keys entering a ferry slip, ca. 1930. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.