1898 – A U.S. Marine Battalion that had been camped at Key West left for Cuba on the USS Panther.
1923 – The local Key West Regulars baseball team defeated the visiting Havana Police Department crew 5 to 3. Will Daughtry and “Midget” Sevilla were the outstanding players.
1927 – A shipment of 102 green sea turtles was sent from Key West to New York via Mallory steamship. The creatures weighed between 80 and 315 pounds each.
1934 – An increased allotment of Federal Emergency Relief Administration funds meant that 250 Key Westers could be put to work: 190 were summoned for airport improvements, 20 for the aquarium, 20 at Fort Taylor, and 20 for sanitation projects.
1947 – Captain Ray Noop of the shark fishing boat Dusky brought in a record catch of 145 sharks weighing 20 tons. The sharks’ livers were sold to the Borden Milk Company and their fins sold for soup.
1999 – Coral Shores High School students laid an underwater memorial at Molasses Reef for teacher Eric Wolfe, who had been killed in 1997 by a passing boat while diving there. The concrete structure bore a plaque reading, “C.S.H.S. Artificial Reef Habitat in Memory of Eric Wolfe, 1969-1997.”
2004 – A one-acre brush fire on Big Pine Key – the third in the same general area in four days – was deemed “suspicious” by fire officials.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The pitching staff for the Key West Regulars baseball team in 1924. L to R: Quintin Lopez, Cy Gray, Bobby Lewis, “Midget” Sevilla, and Maxie Marks. Dewey Riggs Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.