August 25

Retail Clerks Union on strike against Food Fair Stores, Key West, 1963.

1906 – El Centro Asturiano established a branch in Key West. The society had one of the finest hospitals in Havana.

1939 – The large Pan American Airways hangar at Key West was sold to Albert O. Cleare of Miami who disassembled it and moved it. The airline’s ticket office was sold to Charles Ogden who moved it to another location.

1953 – The 11th case of polio in the Florida Keys for the year was reported, as well as the year’s first death when 6-year-old Graydon Menendez died in Miami’s Children’s Variety Hospital.

1963 – A strike by retail clerks of the Food Fair supermarkets in the Florida Keys became violent. In Key West, there was a bomb threat, a company accountant was beaten, and a newly hired cashier had his tires slashed. In Marathon, the store manager was threatened by a young man carrying a rifle.

1976 – The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and Navy security staff burned 10,000 pounds of confiscated marijuana at Fleming Key. The 85 bales, with an estimated street value of $2.5 million, had been found floating off North Key Largo approximately two weeks earlier.

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

Image: Retail Clerks Union on strike against Food Fair Stores, Key West, 1963. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.