August 5

Consumers' Ice Company, Key West, ca. 1912.

1825 – U.S. Navy vessels were successfully patrolling Cuban waters against pirates, and a report from Key West said “no piracy can be well committed without being discovered, and none has been heard of for some months past.”

1904 – Commander George P. Colvocoresses relieved Captain G.A. Bicknell as the Commanding Officer of Naval Station Key West.

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.

1955 – Ohio tourist Bernice Hagendorn was arrested for indecent exposure by Key West Police because she was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a pair of shorts. Before she was apprehended, Hagendorn was sitting in the Cosmopolitan Grill on Duval Street when officer John Yates warned, “It isn’t too wise to be walking around town in those shorts.”

1975 – Monroe County commissioners gave the Bonefish Towers condominium project in Marathon 60 days to begin actual construction of the building or risk losing the two-year-old permit.

1976 – President Gerald Ford named Sidney Aronovitz, a Key West native, as United States District Court Judge for the Southern Florida District.

1984 – The freighter Wellwood ran aground just south of Molasses Reef, inside the boundaries of the Key Largo Coral Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

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

Image: Consumers' Ice Company, Key West, ca. 1912. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.