1832 – Key West experienced a severe gale that “continued with unabated fury” until the next morning. It was supposed many ships had been wrecked or damaged by it.
1861 – Orders were issued that no vessels were to be allowed to leave Key West unless the owners and crews first took the oath of allegiance to the Union.
1885 – The Key West cigar maker’s union came to an agreement with manufacturers over irregular wages paid for different classes of cigars, which settled their strike.
1894 – The U.S. Navy announced it was establishing a coaling station in Key West.
1932 – Preliminary work was started on a lighthouse at Smith Shoals. The shoals located north of the entrance to the Northwest Channel was named for Harbor Pilot Joshua Smith who discovered the shoals.
1945 – Captain Herbert Pinder towed a sperm whale into Key West Harbor. He harpooned the whale while returning from the Dry Tortugas.
1952 – The body of Karl Tanzler, aka Dr. Count Von Cosel, was found dead in his home in Zephyrhills , FL. He died of natural causes. He gained notoriety after he lived with body of Elena Hoyos for over eight years. He had met Elena when he treated her at the Marine Hospital Key West and after her death had taken her body to his home in Key West. After the body was discovered he left town and moved to Zephyrhills.
1955 – The Southern Keys Cemetery on Big Coppitt was formally opened as the only perpetual care cemetery in Keys.
1966 – Pilot whales began stranding themselves on the bay side of Grassy Key. Wildlife agents spent the next two days dragging an estimated 60 whales to deeper water. Unfortunately, many died.
1984 – The Coast Guard and marine salvagers were struggling to remove the Cypriot freighter Wellwood from a reef in the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary. Four tugs with a combined 25,000 horsepower had been unable to budge the 5,900-ton freighter.
1987 – U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles snorkeled at Molasses Reef in the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary to better understand how oil drilling or an oil spill might affect the Keys underwater environment.
2013 – Consultants proposed a plan to the Key West City Commission to make Duval Street a curbless, level, “festival/people” street, which would make it more open for all modes of transportation.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Naval Station coal sheds and waterfront. A large crowd of people on the docks C 1918. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.