December 2

Frank Baing at the Key West Sunset Celebration, early 1980s.

1840 – Wreckers found the ship Norway sunk on Cay Sal Bank. The passengers and crew were saved and brought to Key West, as was the cargo, which was sold for $17,000.

1904 – Fred Ewert was hanged at Key West for the murder of Frank Whitaker. The gallows were erected behind the Monroe County Jail at the corner of Whitehead and Fleming streets.

1925 – Johnson and Johnson sold 36 lots in the Sea View Subdivision of Big Pine Key to Miss Josephine Van Lippi of Miami for $10,000. It was said upon the sale that Big Pine was “destined to become one of the largest cities in the chain [of the Florida Keys].”

1956 – U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles left after two weeks of recuperation from an abdominal operation performed at Walter Reed Hospital.

1960 – The Navy began an 18-day run of underwater explosives tests near the Marquesas Keys. Boaters were ordered to stay at least two miles from the area as each blast would have the impact of one ton of TNT, with dangerous shock and wave disturbances.

1986 – Key Wester Joaquin “Bolo” Godinet died at age 85. For 64 years he had delivered the Miami Herald in Key West using only a bicycle.

1994 – Key Wester Frank Baing (aka the “Conch Salad Man”) died at the age of 93. Baing ran a Petronia Street a produce market, and in the 1950’s he began to sell food at Mallory Square. Baing was an icon of the early Key West sunset celebration.

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

Image: Frank Baing at the Key West Sunset Celebration, early 1980s. Marilyn Kellner Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.