1823 – The first and second mates and two crew of the brig Antelope of Providence, RI, deserted at the Florida Reef. They took the ship’s boat, muskets and gunpowder, provisions, and carpenter’s tools, and it was thought they intended to join with pirates.
1824 – Of the 80 people on Key West, 50 were sick “with ague and fever.”
1890 – The citizens and merchants of Key West were decorating the city with flags, palm fronds and Chinese lanterns to welcome members of the Florida State Firemen’s Association arriving for the annual firemen’s tournament.
1894 – An attempt was made on the life of Emanuel Prendez, a Spanish cigar worker employed by the Seidenberg factory at Key West. Police were patrolling the streets to protect other Spanish contract laborers, who had been brough to the island much to the chagrin of local Cuban cigar workers.
1928 – The first Overseas Highway was formally opened to traffic. It ran from Miami to Key West, with a ferry used to carry vehicles across the unbridged “water gap” between Lower Matecumbe and No Name Key.
1946 – The submarine tender USS Howard W. Gilmore arrived in Key West. The big tender was the flagship for the submarine squadron assigned to Key West.
1988 – Jimmy Buffett presented Key West Mayor Richard Heyman with a check for $15,000 toward the purchase of the Salt Ponds, money raised from a recent benefit concert.
2009 – With a depressed real estate market, the Monroe County School District could find no buyers for two “albatross” properties, the old Harris School in Key West and the four-acre Marathon Manor on Sombrero Beach Road in Marathon.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The first cars on the inaugural run of Overseas Highway ferry, 1928. The first boat carried 23 cars from Lower Matecumbe to No Name Key, en route to Key West. The DeWolfe and Wood Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.