1915 – With improved firefighting apparatus and increased efficiency by the Key West Fire Department, insurance rates were dropped on the island’s high-risk business properties from $50 per thousand in value to $40.
1930 – Mary Harvey Lake died at age 78. In 1917, when the Key West Library was about to close for the lack of funds, she took charge and for the next 10 years ran it without compensation, attending to her duties from early morning to late night.
1933 – It was announced from Washington, DC, that the Post Office on Pigeon Key would be closed.
1953 – Sinclair Refining Company and Commonwealth Oil Company announced they had ended their oil well drilling on Key Largo and had only found salt water.
1955 – Federal Judge Emett C. Choate ruled that crews of the Cuban Airline DC-4 and Navy training jet plane were both at fault in the air crash off Key West South Beach in 1951 in which 43 persons died.
1994 – Former Key West Mayor Richard Heyman died at age 59, after a long struggle with AIDS. Heyman, who served two terms from 1983-85 and 1987-89, was the nation’s first openly gay mayor.
2004 – Key West hurricane re-entry stickers were being sold on an internet auction site, prompting city officials to debate the implications and determine if new laws were needed against the practice.
2009 – Crews installing pilings for a pedestrian bridge on Navy property near Fort Taylor uncovered remnants of a Civil War-era railroad. The iron wheels and track found in the excavation had once been used to transport materials between the fort and the Martello Tower sites during their construction.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: View from the West Martello of the U.S. Navy Fleet in Key West Harbor, past Fort Taylor. Note the railroad line running between the forts. From Harper’s Weekly of April 18, 1874. Monroe County Library Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.