Leonard “Mike” Warren at the snack bar at the Federal Building in Key West in 1977.
1825 – Yellow fever was prevalent at Key West. Of 30 Marines there, only 10 were able perform their duties. The sickness also forced enslaved laborers who had been clearing roads on the island to stop working. The U.S. Naval Hospital was averaging three deaths a day.
1826 – As a result of Nassau being closed to American commerce, a U.S. revenue cutter was patrolling in the Florida Keys and advising Bahamian vessels they could no longer fish or turtle in Florida waters.
1865 – The Sand Key and Key West lighthouses were not lighted because the Confederate ironclad ram Stonewall was at Havana and thought to be taking on ammunition before heading for a possible attack on Key West. It was thought the captain of Stonewall was unaware the Civil War had ended.
1898 – A brief funeral service was held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for Ensign Worth Bagely who was killed when enemy gunfire hit the USS Winslow off the coast of Cuba. His body was shipped to North Carolina for burial.
1935 – The final report for the 1935 Florida census showed there were 12,470 people in Key West and 865 living on other Monroe County keys.
1941 – Filming of the movie “Reap the Wild Wind” began. Eighteen crewmen under the direction of Arthur Rosen were at the Marquesas Keys and Sand Key to shoot preliminary sequences.
1943 – The Seventh U.S. Naval District, headquartered at Key West, was seeking to enlist 119 men with police experience between the ages of 38 to 50 and to serve as shore patrolmen.
1955 – Mike Warren, who operated the stand in the lobby of the Federal Building on Simonton Street for the Florida State Service for the Blind, was named “Lion of the Year” by the Key West Lions Club.
1970 – The 42nd Annual Convention of the Florida State Firemen’s Association was held in Marathon.
1983 – Old Town Trolley, owned by Ed Swift and Chris Belland, purchased the Conch Train from Miami-based Wometco Enterprises. Bill and Olive Kroll, who founded the train in January 1958, had sold it to Wometco in 1972.
1997 – The movie “Shadow Warriors: Assault on Devil’s Island” with Hulk Hogan was being filmed in Key West.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Leonard “Mike” Warren at the snack bar in the Federal Building on Simonton Street from the Miami Herald November 27, 1976. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.