1860 – The Key of the Gulf newspaper noted that, though Key West had long been dependent on wrecking for sustenance, things were changing: Sponging over the previous year had brought in $72,000 and a trade in live fish nearly as much.
1908 – The Miami baseball team arrived 24 hours late to Key West to play the Island City team: The schooner they were on had run aground off Long Key, and they had to wait for a high enough tide to float them off.
1923 – During clearing of the ground for the Stock Island golf course, Key West City Engineer Curry Moreno uncovered a small, iron-bound chest containing a book on the history of the pirates of the Spanish Main, printed in 1753.
1932 – Chester Curry harpooned in the harbor an ocean sunfish that weighed between 1,200 and 1,400 pounds.
1956 – The pre-Civil War Caroline Lowe House at the corner of Duval and Caroline streets was gutted by fire and had to be torn down. For 15 years the house had been the Trade Winds Restaurant. The fire was set by an arsonist who destroyed a number of Key West landmarks before he was caught.
1965 – Hurricane Betsy, a category three storm, passed over the Upper and Middle Keys. Sustained winds of 100 mph or more were recorded between Big Pine Key and Homestead. Rainfall of 10.52 inches was recorded at Big Pine Key and 11.80 inches on Plantation Key.
1994 – Steve Shea defeated incumbent Circuit Court Judge Jefferson Overby. The other election winners were: Jack London, county commissioner; Susan Vernon, county judge and Anne Kelly Cohan, school board.
2013 – Solares Hill, a weekly Key West newspaper first printed in 1971, ceased publication because of declining advertising revenues.
2017 – Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay ordered the evacuation of the 460 inmates and 125 corrections officers from the jail facility on Stock Island to Palm Beach County because, with the changing path of Hurricane Irma, a Lower Keys strike appeared imminent.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: A color postcard of the Caroline Lowe house at 303 Duval Street. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.