August 18
- Florida Keys History Center
- 1 day ago
- 1 min read
1906 – The Key West Realty Company founded a cigar company to build a factory on the large tract of land they owned on First Street and County Road.
1941 – The Fairbanks-Morse company of Chicago was awarded a $135,000 contract for furnishing and installing diesel motors, centrifugal pumps, and auxiliary pumping equipment for the new Keys aqueduct system. The company had 150 days to complete their work.
1954 – Dr. Enrique Rodriguez, an 87-year-old retired physician who had practiced medicine in Key West for 55 years, estimated he had delivered almost 10,000 babies in the city. At one time he was the island’s only delivery doctor.
1961 – During dredging operations in Key West Harbor, an “immovable object” was encountered. Divers with the Navy’s explosive ordnance disposal unit found it was a 4x4x6-foot rock formation, which, when blasted out, proved to be a quarried granite block. The source of the massive stone slab was a mystery.
1991 – Louis Carbonell died at age 88. He had served as a Key West city commissioner, Utility Board member, and Clerk of Court.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Dr. Enrique Rodriguez Basso passport application photo dated 18 March 1930 at Key West. The Joan and Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
