1830 – William R. Hackley recorded in his diary: Rose with the sun and read Hammond and Phillips. After dinner read Stewart. After tea played two rubbers of billiards with Captain James J. Board and got beat. The Sloop of War Natchez in attempting to beat up the harbor got ashore on the point off the lighthouse. Captain Newton sent up for the Collector to send the Lightship down to take out her guns and it was done. Wind northeast fresh and weather pleasant.
1890 – Key West, with a population of 18,786, was the largest city in Florida. The largest employers were the cigar factories making hand-rolled cigars with Cuban tobacco, which employed over 2,000 workers. The second industry was sponge fishing, which had about 100 boats with over 500 men employed.
1901 – The Key West Board of Aldermen ordered the mayor to appoint a dog catcher and to rigidly enforce the leash law.
1954 – Julias Raab, Chancellor of Austria, paid a short visit to Key West and was met by Mayor C.B. Harvey. The Chancellor and his party drove from Miami, stopping at the Theater of the Sea before arriving for a reception at Fort Taylor Officers Club.
1962 – President John Kennedy, Florida Governor Ferris Bryant, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Atlantic Area Commanders of the Army, Air Force and Navy arrived in Key West to review the military installations and troops that had been part of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1974 – Wilhelmina Harvey was unanimously elected chairman of the District School Board of Monroe County during the organizational meeting.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library
Image: President Kennedy on the Naval Station by the Underwater Swimmers School on Nov. 26,1962. Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library. https://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/8151291989/