1843 – The Key West wrecking schooner Rome found floating barrels of pork and lard near Key Vaca, and between there and Bahia Honda it “never lost sight” of barrels of sugar – all apparently cargo from a ship that had sunk with no other trace.
1924 – After a parade through Key West, the Key West chapter of the Ku Klux Klan held an induction ceremony at Bayview Park. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, grandson of the Confederate general, swore in 151 new initiates in the ritual. To this date, the local chapter had received 690 applications for membership.
1926 – The lighthouse tender Ivy was to deliver oil and other supplies to the lighthouses between Miami and Key West, but it was delayed at the Carysfort Reef light because of rough weather.
1929 – A post office opened at Perky on Sugarloaf Key. There had been a post office at an earlier settlement there called Chase, but it had closed 12 years before.
1939 – President Franklin Roosevelt arrived in Key West at 3 p.m. after driving the Overseas Highway from Miami. He was met at West Summerland Key by Key West Mayor Willard Albury who rode to the city with him. The President inspected the inactive Naval Station facilities and then boarded the USS Houston, which then sailed for the Caribbean to take part in war games in progress.
1946 – Monroe County Commissioner Maximo Valdez was working to keep the old wooden Boca Chica Bridge open for fishing. The state had taken possession of all the obsolete bridges in the keys, with most slated to be torn down.
1948 – Bruno Tassione, a 30-year-old Chicago resident, was clinging to life in Key West after being shot multiple times and abandoned at a remote area of Stock Island. Tassione was thought to be a member of the “New Capone Gang” who had been abducted from Miami Beach and driven down to the Keys by members of a rival gang.
1984 – Ground was broken for a new gym at Horace O’Bryant Middle School. The gym was named for the late Enoch “Johnny” Walker, the former chairman of the Monroe County School Board.
1990 – Strands of hair-like algae covered reefs near Key Largo, effectively smothering them. “I’ve been diving on these reefs since 1958, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like this on any part of the reef tract,” said Harold Hudson, biologist at the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary.
1999 – The new Mariners Hospital in Tavernier opened as patients were transferred from the old building.
1998 – The Transit Center for Cuban Refugees on Stock Island closed and moved rafts and other artifacts to Miami where they became part of a museum of the exodus of Cuban and Haitians.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Stock Island to Boca Chica highway bridge and Luther Pinder’s restaurant on Boca Chica circa 1940. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.