April 29

Key West Chamber of Commerce representatives Jim Sumpter and Charles Wardlow inspect a shipment of dwarf Malayan coconuts brought in to replace trees killed by lethal yellowing disease, 1960.

1898 – The USS Panther arrived in Key West with a Marine Corps battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington.

1905 – Marcy B. Darnall and Thomas T. Thompson consolidated two newspapers, The Citizen and the Inter-Ocean, and published their first issue of The Key West Citizen.

1939 – Movie star Gloria Swanson and a group of friends arrived on the yacht Vidou. They were guests of Mrs. Wallace (Jessie) Kirk who took them on a tour of the city. Miss Swanson lived in Key West as a little girl when her father was stationed at the Army Barracks.

1959 – Three sailors stationed aboard the USS Bushnell drove onto the grounds of Key West High School and attacked two of the school’s baseball players. The reasons for the assault were not clear, but the Navy men were arrested for trespassing.

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.

1968 – The new bridge between Big Pine and No Name keys opened for traffic.

Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.

Image: Key West Chamber of Commerce representatives Jim Sumpter and Charles Wardlow inspect a shipment of dwarf Malayan coconuts brought in to replace trees killed by lethal yellowing disease, 1960. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.