December 15
- Florida Keys History Center
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
1835 – Major Francis L. Dade, Commander of the Key West Army Barracks, sailed to Tampa with his command.
1899 – Key West cigar factories were working in full force. For the week ending December 6, E.H. Gato manufactured 225,000; Cortez Cigar Company shipped 87,000; George W. Nichols manufactured 44,000; Pohalski and Company manufactured 150,000; Key West Cigar Manufacturing Company made 110,000; D.L. Trujillo and Sons shipped 200,000; C.L. Knowles made 15,000; Baker and Dubois made 38,200; S. Falk and Sons made 150,000; Martinez Hedesa and Co. made 41,000; Thompson Brothers made 5,000; Sar Alvarez Cigar Company made 40,000; S. & F. Fieitas made 39,000, and Theodore Perez and Company made 75,000.
1925 – Caleb Roten, an African American man from Los Angeles, arrived in the Keys to look after his property on Torch Key. Roten was the descendant of William Roten, one of the earliest settlers on the Lower Keys island.
1930 – The German cable ship Neptune started laying a new telephone cable to Cuba. The Key West end of the cable landed at the foot of Waddell Street. The cable, jointly owned by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Cuban Telephone Company, was the fourth between Key West and Havana.
1940 – The U.S. Naval Air Station Key West was formally established at Trumbo Point.
1955 – Monroe County Commissioner Clarence Higgs said that the county’s top priority was to install streetlights along both North and South Roosevelt boulevards in Key West.
1968 – Dr. Harold Bennett, executive secretary of the Florida Baptist Convention, delivered the address to dedicate the new First Baptist Church at 524 Eaton Street in Key West. The old church had been destroyed by fire in 1956.
1985 – Key West bar owner and former mayoral candidate Captain Tony Tarracino announced that was running for Governor of Florida. Though Tarracino was registered as a Democrat, he was considering making the run as an independent candidate.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: North Roosevelt Boulevard, Key West, ca. 1950. Jeff Brodhead Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
