1926 – The shipment of Cuban pineapples from Key West by train was stymied when 150 men who transferred the fruit from the steamships to the rails walked off the job, demanding 60 cents an hour instead of 50 cents. The pineapple season was at its peak, and 160 railcar loads had shipped the day before.

1956 – Cuban Treasurer General Plutarco Villalobo Marquez presented a marble bust of José Martí to the Key West Art & Historical Society. Mayor C.B. Harvey thanked the Cuban government in both English and Spanish for the gesture of friendship.

We're celebrating America's 250th birthday throughout June & July at the Key Largo & Islamorada Library branches

2011 – Key West businessman and philanthropist Frank Romano died at 88. Romano and partner Joe Liszka founded the popular Key West Aloe cosmetics company, and they were instrumental in the creation of Fantasy Fest. Romano also led the charge for a formal Keys tourism marketing program and the “bed tax” that now funds the local Tourist Development Council.

Summer Reading is on during June and July at all branches of the Monroe County Public Library

1937 – One hundred and sixty-seven residents living between Card Sound and the Matecumbe Keys petitioned the Monroe County Commission for protection against trespassers and vagrants who were frequenting the lime groves and other areas of the Upper Keys.

1926 – Monroe County High School was accredited by the Florida Department of Education as a Class A institution. Graduates could now enter Florida colleges and universities without taking an examination.

1976 – The Singleton Seafood Corporation announced they had bought Sea Farms, Inc. and Thompson & O’Neal Shrimp Company. The purchase included most of the working waterfront of the Key West Bight.

1855 – Ellen Mallory, a Key West resident since 1822, died on the island at the age of 64. After her husband died in 1825, leaving her alone with two young sons, she opened the island’s first boarding house, which she then ran for many years. Mallory “possessed an extraordinary fund of good sense, wit, and humor, which ever made her an agreeable companion,” said her obituary.

1980 – A task force of Key West business leaders was formed to combat the perception that Cuban refugees from the Mariel boatlift had overwhelmed the island. Merchants reported that business was down between 25 and 50 per cent compared to the previous year.

Rock-n-Read all summer at the Marathon Library branch with theme weeks, reading logs to earn prizes, weekly grab & go challenges and events on Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.

Read from Coast to Coast and Cover to Cover at the Big Pine Key Library branch this summer. We'll have fun prizes and weekly presentations.

Get a Ticket to Read this summer at the Key West Library. We'll have scavenger hunts, a bookmark competition, prizes for reading logs and special Saturday programs throughout June and July!

2011 – Concerned divers and the city of Key West began crafting a plan to stabilize two massive dish-type antennae on the wreck of the Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The 22-foot-tall, 80-ton structures were beginning to come loose, and it was feared they would fall in a storm.

1929 – Work commenced on a new Standard Oil Co. gasoline filling station at 829 Fleming Street, on the corner of Margaret, in Key West.

1971 – Florida Secretary of State Richard Stone announced that Fort Taylor and the Key West Armory had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

1956 – Two Key West political candidates who recently lost their elections were given a demonstration by a representative of the Automatic Voting Machine Company to show how votes recorded by the tallying devices could not be altered without detection.

1956 – The members of the First Baptist Church in Key West voted to build a new church building at their property on the corner of Eaton and Bahama streets, after the previous structure had been destroyed by fire a month earlier.

1854 – A letter from Key West stated that since the beginning of the year there had been 28 vessels wrecked upon the Florida Reef. Salvaged property brought before the court was valued at $256,189.74, with wreckers awarded $46,989.92 – an average of 18 cents paid to the wreckers for every dollar of property they saved.

1946 – The Key West General Hospital invited eight physicians to be on its consulting staff: Drs. Thomas O. Otto, surgeon; E. Clay Shaw, urologist; Sterling E. Nichols, cardiologist; Michael Price DeBoe, ENT; Ralph Jack, obstetrician; Wiley M. Sams, dermatologist; and Francis W. Glenn, orthopedist.