Today in Keys History – January 11
1911 – Dr. J.B. Maloney purchased the home at 508 Simonton Street in Key West to connect it with the Louise Maloney Hospital. When the attachment was completed, it would give the facility eight new rooms and allow the hospital to accept patients that it had been turning away.
1924 – A campaign to rid Key West of vagrant, winter season “snowbirds” was successful, as none were seen about the island.
1967 – A Key West-based crawfishing boat and two boats out of Marathon were involved in a gun battle near the Cay Sal Banks, Bahamas, in which one man was killed and one wounded.
1994 – Rex Weech, longtime groundskeeper of the Key West High School stadium, died at age 87.
1998 – Islamorada resident and fly-fishing pioneer Jimmie Albright died at the age of 82. He adapted fly tackle to catching bonefish and tarpon and made the sport what it is today.
2000 – The last vestiges of the Howard Johnson’s restaurant on North Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West were removed. The building, which had been damaged in Hurricane Georges in 1998, was to be replaced by a new hotel.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Howard Johnson’s Restaurant at 3045 North Roosevelt and Sigsbee Road in Key West, ca. 1954. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.