1857 – After three months of heavy rains, the salt crop at Key West had nearly failed. Salt manufacturers had managed to safely put away 50,000 bushels earlier in the year, though, which would serve the needs of the local and Havana fisheries.
1897 – Sylvanus Johnson was executed on gallows erected between the courthouse and jail in Key West’s Jackson Square. Johnson, an African American, was convicted of raping a white woman.
1911 – Consulting engineer J.N. Hazelhurst of the Southern Asphalt and Constructing Company arrived in Key West to set up headquarters for the company’s street paving project. Schooners carrying paving bricks from Baltimore and curbstones from the Hudson River Valley would not arrive until after the hurricane season.
1923 – The legendary jazz trumpeter Theodore “Fats” Navarro Jr. was born at 828 Thomas Street.
1957 – Key Colony Beach became the second city in Monroe County when the community’s 11 qualified voters approved incorporation at a town hall meeting.
2004 – The Monroe County School Board decided not to combine the Poinciana and Sigsbee elementary schools, but to instead build a new Poinciana campus and renovate the Sigsbee facility.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Key Colony Beach being built on August 6, 1956. Copyright Edwin O. Swift Jr. from the archives of Edwin O. Swift III. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.