1858 – Philip J. Fontaine, grocer and ship chandler, died at age 50. He had served three terms as Mayor of Key West.
1864 – John Whitehead died in New York where he was vice president of an insurance company. He was, with John Simonton, John Fleming and Pardon Greene, one of the first American owners of Key West.
1903 – A crowd of “hoodlums” gathered in the Key West cemetery and lured the proprietor of a nearby store there under the pretense that someone wanted to talk to him. They then attacked and beat the man. Police expected to make arrests.
1927 – The Key West Planning and Zoning Board met for the first time. The members of the board were: Chairman W.W. Demeritt, L.T. Bragassa, Miss Mollie Parker, A.C. Elgin and Emory Pierce.
1941 – Vandals damaged the statue of José Martí in Bayview Park. Marble slabs at the base had been pried loose, with some smashed. Numerous other pieces of park property had been damaged in preceding days.
1955 – T.T. Thompson, founder of The Key West Citizen, died in Miami at the age of 79. Thompson sold the paper in 1921 to L.P. Artman.
1962 – Schools in Monroe County began to be integrated for the first time when 30 African American students were admitted to Sigsbee and Harris elementary schools and Coral Shores and Marathon high schools.
1963 – Monroe County Sheriff’s officers and U.S. Customs agents raided a suspected training camp of Cuban exile “freedom fighters” at No Name Key, after having received a tip that approximately 40 paramilitary trainees had broken into and were illegally occupying a fishing camp. On arrival, the officers found much evidence of the Cubans’ presence, but they had apparently fled shortly before. Similar groups aiming to invade Cuba had been training sporadically at No Name for months.
2007 – In lieu of searching for a replacement, the Marathon City Council agreed to give City Manager Mike Puto a six-month extension of his contract.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Kim Graham, 3rd grade, Harris School 1962-1963. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.