A fourth grade class at May Sands School, 1956-57
1816 – The ship General Pike was driven onto the reef near Key Largo during a gale, and it was abandoned by the captain and crew. Two weeks later, Bahamian wreckers found the derelict vessel, refloated it, and sold it in Nassau.
1823 – The doctors had fallen ill at Key West, and Commodore David Porter wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, “We are greatly in want of medical aid on this station…. I beg, sir, that our situation may be taken into consideration, and, as the sickly season is fast approaching, I hope that several surgeon’s mates may be sent to us.”
1863 – To this date, since the blockade of the Confederate coast had been established in 1861, 166 blockade runners had been captured and processed through the Admiralty Court at Key West: 16 steamers, four barks, 114 schooners, 20 sloops, and four cargos with no vessel.
1889 – U.S. special agent Charles Shackleford reported on his examination of the far Upper Florida Keys. He found Old Rhodes Key, “to be a very fertile island, and somewhat thickly peopled by persons from the Bahama Islands, who are very much inclined to keep the dialect of those islands. Tropical fruits grow with scarcely any cultivation here, as on other keys.”
1943 – Memorial services were held at the Fleming Street Methodist Church for Frank L. Spencer, the first Key West inductee to die in World War II. He was killed in North Africa on April 23.
1953 – Work began on the $2 million sewer service expansion project that would give Key West one of the most modern sewer systems in the nation.
1956 – The Monroe County School Board named the new elementary school on United Street in Key West the May Sands Elementary School. Miss Sands began as a teacher at Harris School in 1909 and taught at Russell Hall and Division Street School where she stayed until she retired in 1952 after 44 1/2 years teaching.
1960 – The Navy warned boaters that for the next two days they would be blasting a coral obstruction in the Key West shipping channel with 200-pound charges. The USS Norfolk had struck the uncharted reef two months earlier, severely damaging its propellors.
1992 – El Salvador United Methodist Church disbanded after 115 years.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Winifred Fryzel’s 4th grade class at May Sands School, 1956-1957. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.