1850 – The brig Isabella Reed, sailing from New Orleans to Savannah, ran aground on Conch Reef, but the captain refused assistance from wreckers. Ten days later, it was still on the reef.
1899 – The Key West Electric Street Railway company operated their first car on Duval Street. Everything worked smoothly and the car made frequent trips to La Brisa, carrying nearly 500 people before it stopped for the night.
1951 – Former President Herbert Hoover spent 10 days fishing off the Upper and Middle Keys.
1968 – Claude Valdez was named winner of the contest to design a flag for the City of Key West. His flag would later become the banner of the Conch Republic.
1974 – A gasoline tanker truck wrecked on the Indian Key Channel drawbridge and closed traffic on US 1 for over eight hours. Many of the estimated 3,000 affected motorists spent the time socializing, fishing, and sunbathing. One young woman danced in the road “wearing only cut-off jeans and a smile.”
1994 – Key West historian Betty Bruce died at 75. Bruce, a founding member of the Old Island Restoration Foundation, worked for many years at the Key West branch of the Monroe County Public Library, and in 1965 established the “Florida History Room,” now the Florida Keys History Center.
2010 – Over 300 demonstrators, dressed in black, gathered at Smathers Beach in Key West to show solidarity against oil drilling off the Florida coast.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Traffic stopped on the old Indian Key bridge, published in the Miami Herald on December 29, 1977. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.