1884 – President Chester Arthur recommended to the Senate that Colonel Frank N. Wicker, the collector of customs at Key West, be removed from office because of alleged sympathy and collusion with Cuban filibusters.
1893 – The Key West Guard, Company A of the 5th Battalion, drilled at the Armory in the Monroe County Courthouse. The officers were: F.C. Brossier, Captain; M.W. Curry, 1st Lieutenant and H.L. Roberts, 2nd Lieutenant.
1898 – Companies A and G of the 25th Infantry of the U.S. Colored Troops from Montana arrived at Key West on the steamer City of Key West.
1916 – A meeting of the Mother’s Club at the Ruth Hargrove Institute had 150 attendees. The club was established in 1903 to assist the institute and had been instrumental in the establishment of a lunchroom for the students.
1924 – Captain Walter Lowe returned to Key West from the Rebecca Shoal lighthouse and reported that the last vestiges of the wreck steamship Valbanera had disappeared beneath the water. Valbanera had been sailing from Havana to New Orleans when it was caught in the hurricane of 1919 and driven onto Halfmoon Shoal, with all 488 onboard killed.
1926 – A representative from the Merritt, Chapman, Scott Company was in Key West to meet with Capt. Clark D. Stearns, Commandant of the Seventh Naval District and Commanding Officer Naval Station Key West, to discuss a proposition for a freshwater pipeline running from the mainland to Key West.
1952 – The first families moved into the new 1,000-unit military housing projects at Sigsbee Park and Peary Court.
1985 – Angelo Donghia, one of the world’s most influential interior designers and former resident of Key West, died in New York at the age of 50.
1985 – Mayor Richard Heyman led the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new 158-room Key West Hampton Inn on North Roosevelt Boulevard.
1997 – Monroe County Commissioners voted unanimously to rename the new county government building on Truman Avenue the Harvey Government Center at the Historic Truman School. The new name honored the late C.B. Harvey, former mayor of Key West, and his wife Wilhelmina, at the time serving as a county commissioner and who had been the first woman mayor of Monroe County.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Students in the school yard of Bruce Hall of Hargrove School on United Street. circa 1910. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.