1859 – The ship Mulhouse went ashore and bilged on the Quicksands west of the Marquesas Keys. Mulhouse was carrying 26 passengers, $25,000 in silver, and 2,789 bales of cotton. The people and specie were saved, as was some of the cotton.
1885 – The Florida State Census listed the population of Key West as 13,558. The birthplaces of the people in the census were Key West/Florida 43%, Cuba 33% and Bahamas 24%. The census reported a total work force of 4,895. The largest number of those employed, 2,035, worked in the cigar industry. The next occupation was seaman, followed by washwomen 542, laborers 283 and carpenters 195.
1898 – The Spanish Naval Court of Inquiry submitted to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Long its results that found the Battleship Maine was destroyed by an internal explosion.
1901 – Henry Carbollero, collector for the Triumph Mills Coffee Company in Key West, was missing, as was $500 of the company’s money. Carbollero had left a note saying that he was behind in his accounts and was going to drown himself, but no trace of him was found; some suspected he went to Cuba.
1946 – Two Navy ensigns and one crewman were killed when their planes collided in mid-air near the Sombrero Key lighthouse. They were part of a group of six torpedo planes participating in training exercises, when one plane cut off the tail of another, and both went into the water.
1961 – President John Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met in Key West to discuss the increasingly concerning situation in Southeast Asia.
1963 – Bernice Daniel purchased the Hemingway House on Whitehead Street.
1963 – Sheriff John Spottswood was elected State Senator over his Republican opponent, Charles C. Stamm.
1994 – Former Key West resident Charles A. Allen Jr. was memorialized when the Fort Polk Library was named the First Sergeant Charles A. Allen Jr. Library. Allen graduated from Key West High School and joined the Army in 1966. He was medically retired in 1984 and died in 1985.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the Naval Air Station during their meeting March 26, 1961. In the rear is Senator George Smathers. U.S. Navy photo. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.