1961 – Steel support beams, each 40 feet long and weighing 6,000 pounds, were placed atop the new Scottish Rite Temple at Eaton and Simonton streets in Key West to allow for another floor for the building.

A U.S. Navy officer's survey, assessment and weather records from Key West in 1823 provide some of the earliest accounts of the island.

1941 – The old Consumers’ Ice Plant at James and Grinnell streets in Key West burned. Firefighters had an especially difficult time with the idle structure’s cork insulation, which smoldered for hours after the main blaze was extinguished.

1959 – The Navy announced it was building a new target area and observation towers at the Marquesas Keys as part of a “high altitude live bombing range.” The target would be placed two and one-eighth miles west of the islands, with the towers erected onshore. No damage to natural resources was expected.

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.