January 5

Radio and television broadcaster Arthur Godfrey with wife Mary Bourke and their daughter in the Florida Keys, 1950s.

1861 – U.S. Army troops at Key West’s Fort Taylor were closing all the gun ports on the lower tier, which was 20 feet above the water line.

1923 – The Key West Electric Company reported that 1,708,615 passengers rode the island’s streetcars in 1922 – equal to about 95 rides during the year for every person in the city.

1940 – The Overseas Toll Road district reported that 13,452 vehicles of all kinds passed through the highway’s toll gates during December 1939.

1949 – Key Wester Harry L. (Bubber) Wickers was buried from St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church. He had been killed in action in Normandy, France, in 1944. A ballfield on Flagler Avenue was named in his honor.

1951 – Popular entertainment personality Arthur Godfrey broadcast his daily, nationwide CBS Radio show from Pigeon Key.

1969 – After holding at five cents per copy for more than 50 years, The Key West Citizen raised its rates to 10 cents daily and 15 cents on Sunday.

1976 – Monroe County Sheriff Bobby Brown was investigating how 150 pounds of marijuana gathered from the Boca Chica shoreline two weeks earlier had gone missing from the secure compound where it was being held for processing.

2016 – Key West city commissioners voted to name the new City Hall at 1300 White Street the Josephine Parker City Hall at Historic Glynn Archer School.

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

Image: Radio and television broadcaster Arthur Godfrey with wife Mary Bourke and their daughter in the Florida Keys, 1950s. Note the poster in the background of Godfrey promoting Chesterfield cigarettes. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.