1872 – Key West was suffering a water famine from the shortage of rain. The situation was so bad that the commandant of Fort Taylor opened the fort’s large cisterns to the use of the citizens.
1888 – Colonel Henry A. Crane died at age 75. He was born in New Jersey and came to Florida and fought in the Seminole War. During the Civil War he was first in the Union Navy and later in the Army. After the war he settled in Key West and published the newspaper “The Key of the Gulf.” He also served as Clerk of Court for Monroe County and represented the county in the Florida House and Senate.
1918 – Mrs. Adolphus Busch, widow of the late millionaire beer brewer, was detained at Key West after arriving from Havana after a four-year stay in Germany. Federal authorities wanted to investigate her citizenship status, the nature of her travels abroad, and her communications with people in Germany.
1921 – A train carrying the body of former Cuban President Gen. Jose M. Gomez arrived at Key West from New York. Many local dignitaries paid their respects to Gomez as his casket was escorted via military procession to an awaiting ship for transport to Cuba.
1924 – The recently announced naming contest for the new hotel being built at the corner of Duval and Fleming Streets in Key West was very active. Some of the suggestions: Hotel Aubuchon, The Miramar, Trail’s End, Juan Salas, La Concha, Hotel Mariposa, The Palms Inn, La Mascota, and the Dolphin.
1967 – Baseball great Ted Williams won the five-day Islamorada Gold Cup Tarpon Tournament as the grand champion.
1972 – Hurricane Agnes, a category 1 storm, passed into the Gulf of Mexico well west of the Dry Tortugas, but spawned several tornadoes through the Florida Keys. The worst damage was on Big Coppitt Key, where trailer homes were destroyed and 35 people injured. In Key West, a home at 615 Elizabeth Street was knocked off its foundation. Conch Key was struck by a tornado, too.
1994 – Floy V. Thompson, patron of the arts and scholars and for many years the “Grand Dame of Key West,” died at the age of 85.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Damage at the end of Front Street in Key West from a tornado from Hurricane Agnes on June 18, 1972. Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.