1861 – In answer to his request, US Army Headquarters in Washington ordered Captain Brannan to move his company from the Barracks to Fort Taylor.
1908 – The mail boat from Miami to Key West ran aground, and mail delivery was delayed for 36 hours.
1923 – It was reported that a total of 1,287 ships arrived and docked in Key West Harbor in 1922; 75 were of foreign registry.
1947 – After receiving many complaints from residents, Monroe County Sheriff Berlin Sawyer assigned two deputies to patrol Stock Island to end “promiscuous shooting” there. “We intend to stop the firing of guns on Stock Island,” he said.
1959 – About 500 Castro supporters sailed from Key West to Cuba on the auto-passenger ferry City of Havana.
1967 – A group of 75 militant Cuban and Haitian exiles, armed with guns and bombs, were arrested at Coco Plum Beach near Marathon. The men were planning to invade Haiti, overthrow the Duvalier government, and then use the country as a base to wage war against Cuba, with the goal of ousting Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
2005 – Keys biologists and conservationists were concerned about a growing population of Gambian pouched rats on Grassy Key. It was thought the colony of large, raccoon-sized rats descended from pet rats released five years earlier, and there was a fear the invasive species might spread through the Keys, or even reach the mainland.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The Cuban auto ferry at the dock on Stock Island circa 1960. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.