1893 – Cuban revolutionary leader Jose Marti arrived in Key West from Tampa. Nearly every Cuban-occupied building and residence was decorated with bunting and Cuban flags, and a procession of 2,000 people went with Marti to the home of Theodore Gerez, his host, where Marti spoke about Cuba’s liberation from Spain.
1901 – The City of Key West began demolishing the long-abandoned Barranco & Son building on Front Street. While razing the structure, workers found 33 boxes of Mauser rifle shells, 1,000 per box. Apparently, the ammunition had been intended to be smuggled to Cuban revolutionaries years earlier but never made the boat.
1911 – Key West was named headquarters for the Seventh Lighthouse District. The District included all the lighthouses from Fowey Rocks off the Upper Keys to Cedar Key on the West Coast of Florida.
1926 – A man, stripped to his underwear and covered in tar and feathers, was dumped from a car in front of the Monroe Theater in Key West. Earlier, he had been taken to jail for “annoying a white woman.” A mob of 15 angry masked men later stormed the lockup and forced city jailer J.O. Kemp to hand over the detainee. When the man was dumped on Duval Street, he was told by the mob he had 24 hours to leave town.
1943 – The Overseas Hotel in Key West was purchased by California hoteliers L.S. and Louise Gruber. The purchase price for the 80-room hotel with 150 feet of frontage on Fleming Street was $40,000.
1954 – Key West’s 21st case of polio for the year was confirmed.
1959 – Mervin Thompson Jr. of Key West was elected state vice-president of the Florida Junior Chamber of Commerce.
1961 – Key West Citizen photographer Don Pinder was formally commended for bravery by the Key West City Commission for saving Peter Welters, a 14-year-old, from drowning.
1967 – Work began on the first Junior College building on the new site in Stock Island.
1973 – The bodies of two teenage girls were found in a mangrove thicket at Point Pleasant on Key Largo. The girls, sisters Mary and Marguerite Jenkins of New Jersey, had been sexually assaulted and shot to death. The crime was never solved.
1995 – The Key West City Commission voted to rename Rest Beach the C.B. Harvey Rest Beach. Harvey served as Mayor of Key West from 1951 to 1957 and from 1961 to 1963.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Jose Marti speaking from the house at 1125 Duval St. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.