1833 – Cholera was rampant at Key West, and people were fleeing the island. A correspondent wrote ”all the garrison except one officer and three men left for the Mainland. The inhabitants of the island are leaving as fast as opportunities occur; and to add to our misfortunes, I fear our best physicians will go, too.”
1854 – For the first time in three months, rain fell at Key West. Cisterns had been getting low, and the new water was much needed.
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.
1898 – The steamer Mascotte arrived at Key West from Havana with 90 passengers, including members of some of the Cuba’s most prominent families. With the growing fear that revolution and war were imminent, they had left Cuba without luggage and “in a state of semi-panic.”
1908 – Members of the House of Representatives met with President Theodore Roosevelt to discuss the creation of an inland waterway that would run from Boston to Key West.
1918 – The U.S. Navy Department established a “dry zone” for Key West and an area within five miles around it. The edict said that for every place under naval jurisdiction, “alcoholic liquors, including beers, ale, and wines shall not be sold, bartered, given, or knowingly delivered by one person to another.”
1928 – Pauline and Ernest Hemingway arrived in Key West for the first time on the Peninsular & Occidental steamship from Havana.
1949 – The Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff began three days of meetings at the Little White House. General Dwight Eisenhower, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was in Key West recovering from a serious illness, forcing the Key West meeting.
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 that had taken refuge in the Peruvian embassy in Havana. They made donations and sent a truck with non-perishable food to Miami to aid the refugees.
1988 – The Key West City Commission, sitting as Board of Adjustment, approved plans to rebuild the Cuban Club at 1102 and 1108 Duval St. The original building had been destroyed by fire.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The Cuban Club/Fountains Restaurant at 1108 Duval Street after 1983 fire. Photo from the Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.