1946 – The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department held a public demolition of recently-seized slot machines at the courthouse in Key West. The illegal gambling devices had been taken from Weaver’s Tourist Camp on Stock Island and Eddie’s Fish Basket on Sugarloaf Key.

1959 – Rear Admiral Francis D. McCorkle, Commanding Officer of Naval Station Key West, was unanimously chosen to be Grand Marshal for the island’s annual Armed Forces Day parade. The popular McCorkle, a highly decorated war hero, was considered an “adopted son” by Key Westers.

1961 – ABC Television aired an episode of the series “Expedition” featuring Marathon and the Middle Keys, with a focus on the area’s recovery from Hurricane Donna.

1860 – The U.S. Navy steamer Mohawk brought the captured slave ship Wildfire into Key West Harbor. The Wildfire had 510 Africans on board – people taken from the Congo River region and intended to be sold into slavery in Cuba. The Wildfire was in violation of U.S. and international law, and the Navy had been searching for such lawbreakers.

1963 – Entomologists were zeroing in a species of whitefly recently found on Stock Island as the spreader of a lethal yellowing virus that was destroying coconut palms. Since its first appearance in Key West in 1954, the disease had killed 80% of Lower Keys coconut trees.

1982 – The last span of the new Seven Mile Bridge was put into place.

1956 – Monroe County Commissioner Harry Harris announced that plans for U.S. 1 to bypass Boca Chica Naval Air Station were sent to the Florida Road Department for final approval. At the time, the highway cut through the air station, which was creating problems for both the Navy and civilians. The new bypass would skirt around the base on the Gulf side.

1943 – The Pirate’s Cove Fishing Lodge, along Bow Channel on Sugarloaf Key, was turned over to the Coast Guard. Work started immediately to convert the buildings into barracks for the Guardsmen who would be protecting Keys waters.

2010 – After having had the lowest census participation rate in Florida in 2000, Monroe County had the highest for 2010.

1935 – The Federal Emergency Relief Administration’s strategy of reshaping Key West into a tourist destination was working.

1961 – President John F. Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met in Key West to discuss the situation in Southeast Asia.

2010 – The Friends of Higgs Beach, an ad hoc citizens’ group, was working with Monroe County to improve the Key West beachfront park.

1937 – The turtling schooner A.M. Adams arrived in Key West on its first voyage, delivering a cargo of 380 green sea turtles.

1963 - Filming began on “Man In The Water,” a movie starring Mark Stevens.

1935 – The cabanas at Rest Beach were fully booked by winter visitors for the season.

1935 – An excursion to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas was offered to up to 16 passengers on the Commodore seaplane.