1906 – A group of young men speared an eight-foot, 800-pound sea lion in Jewfish Channel. The seal initially towed their boat as it tried to get away, but it soon angered and turned on the men, so they killed it. They towed the creature to Key West and put it on exhibition on Front Street, charging an admission of ten cents to see it.
1911 – The Key West City Directory listed 30 cigar manufacturers.
1923 – United Daughters of the Confederacy representative Mrs. M.E. Bond of Macon, Georgia, visited the Harris School in Key West in the hope of establishing a chapter of the Children of the Confederacy there.
1926 – The Monroe County Commission entered into an agreement with the C.A.P. Turner company of Minneapolis to furnish bridge designs, plans, and specifications for the bridges of the new Overseas Highway.
1927 – Customs officials at Key West found tin cans filled with pure grain alcohol concealed within 24 barrels of molasses. The illegal booze had originated in Havana and had been smuggled on the Cuba ferry steamer.
1940 – Aina Hedburg, an employee of the Pirate’s Cove Camp on Sugarloaf Key, was declared a hero after rescuing three people from a burning car that had crashed near the resort. Moments after she pulled the people from the wreck, it exploded, which surely would have killed anyone trapped inside.
1954 – Six Navy men were killed when two helicopters collided in midair over Fleming Key. The planes attached to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron One had just taken off from the Trumbo Point base.
1955 – The Navy’s Underwater Photo Team was developing a film that was shown on CBS Television.
1981 – A backhoe loaded on a truck crossing the Seven Mile Bridge hit the overhead bridge tender’s shack rupturing a 1,000 gallon propane tank, causing a fire that killed the bridge tender, Peter C. Fancher, and destroyed the swing bridge mechanisms. The bridge was closed for 22 hours; the swing bridge was never fixed and was removed when the new Seven Mile Bridge opened.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The swing section of the Seven Mile Railroad Bridge. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.