1890 – Workmen installed seats in the new First Baptist Church on Eaton Street. The original church was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1886.
1905 – The new Havana-American Cigar Company factory on County Road (now Flagler Avenue) near Second Street was completed at a cost of $40,000. It employed 700 cigarmakers.
1921 – After a year of construction, the new E.H. Gato cigar factory at Simonton and Virginia Streets was opened for business. The large, reinforced-concrete building was expected accommodate 2,400 employees.
1926 – Key West Police Chief Cleveland Niles said new traffic signals and signs had been fully installed across the city. “Stop” and “Slow” were painted white on the streets, and yellow sidewalk signs warned of one-way streets, school zones, quiet zones, and where parking was permitted.
1937 – In a ceremony in Bayview Park, the cornerstone for the Jose Marti Monument was laid. Raoul A. Pizer y Pollo, representing the Government of Cuba, presented the cornerstone to Key West Mayor Harry C. Galey.
1940 – William W. Demeritt received a commission as a Commander in the Coast Guard. He had been Superintendent of the Seventh Lighthouse District for 26 years. With the transfer of the lighthouses to the Coast Guard his job was abolished and he was assigned to the Coast Guard District headquarters in Jacksonville.
1946 – Land prices in Key Largo were on the rise: tracts on the highway with no water frontage averaged $200 an acre; those on the water were fetching $500 an acre. And with evidence of oil apparently found at Card Sound, prices were expected to go even higher.
1954 – After an absence of 18 years the Salvation Army reopened in Key West. Lt. Harry Russell, who graduated from Key West High School, opened a temporary office in the education building of the Old Stone Methodist Church until the Army could buy its own building.
1974 – The 2,000 residents of Key Largo were alarmed by a planned, 406-acre condominium development that would span both side of U.S. 1 on the island. The expansion would contain 2,747 residential units in 40 buildings, each seven stories high and overlooking the water.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Postcard of the First Baptist Church and the Old Stone Church. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.