February 16
- Florida Keys History Center
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
1898 – The steamer Olivette arrived at Key West with 45 survivors of the U.S. Battleship Maine, which had exploded in Havana Harbor. The wounded were received at the Marine Hospital.
1931 – Captain R.T. Menner, Commandant of Naval Station Key West, told a local Marine Day audience that a “rising tide of color” threatened civilized nations. “There are hordes of foreigners who would haul down the Stars and Stripes and raise in its stead the red flag of anarchy,” he said.
1936 – Key West’s Nelson English Park was dedicated. The main speaker was Alex Johnson, and the Welters Cornet Band provided music for the ceremony. The park was named for Nelson English, the island’s first African American Postmaster.
1963 – Fire destroyed the William Curry Sons building on Front Street. The giant two-story frame building, built after the Great Fire of 1886, was considered one of the island’s architectural gems.
1973 – The U.S. military accepted an offer from the City of Key West giving all prisoners of war returning from Vietnam a one-week vacation on the island with their families.
1976 – Norton Thomton, fishing near the Western Sambos, caught a world record 90-pound kingfish.
2006 – Key West City Commissioners agreed that the City Hall on Angela Street was inadequate and that a new location would have to be found. To help fund a new City Hall complex, the sale of “excess” city land, including the Botanical Gardens on College Road, was discussed.
2016 – More than 200 people gathered in Key West’s Bayview Park for the unveiling of the “Forgotten Soldier” monument. The 10-foot-tall bronze statue of a Civil War soldier was dedicated to the 126 Florida Keys men who joined the Union Army’s U.S. Colored Troops on this date in 1863.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Survivors of the Battleship Maine at the Marine Hospital in Key West on February 21, 1898. Photo by Geo. C. Mages from Scott De Wolfe Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
