1906 – The Key West Realty Company found a cigar company to build a factory on the large tract of land they had on First Street and County Road (now Flagler Avenue).
1912 – The federal government abandoned the idea of establishing a biological research station at Duck Key. It was thought that the plan for a new station would move forward, but that it would be situated much closer to Key West.
1915 – J.N. English was principal of Key West’s Douglass School; Mildred Shavers, Constance Roberts, Leonele Graham, Lucille Shackelford, Irene Roberts, Sam Welters, and Alma Dupont were teachers.
1917 – Key West Captain of Police Cleveland Elwood and Policeman Roland Curry, both candidates for a new term of Captain of Police, got into a fight on Duval Street. The men were talking politics when Curry told Elwood he was ignorant. Curry received a severe beating and Mayor Norberg Thompson suspended Elwood.
1954 – Dr. Enrique Rodriguez, an 87-year-old retired physician who had practiced medicine in Key West for 55 years, estimated he had delivered almost 10,000 babies in the city. For a period, he was the only obstetrician on the island.
1994 – Reports from Cuba said that hundreds of migrants left on homemade rafts for the Florida Keys, with police doing nothing to stop them. Florida Governor Lawton Chiles declared a state of emergency to prepare for an influx of refugees, but Keys residents kept a “business as usual” attitude.
2004 – After nearly a decade of debate, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit to the Florida Department of Transportation to add a cement divider to separate opposing traffic and an extra northbound lane to the “18 Mile Stretch” of highway linking Key Largo to the mainland.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Dr. Enrique Rodriguez Basso passport application photo dated 18 March 1930. The Joan and Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.