July 16
- Florida Keys History Center
- 9 hours ago
- 1 min read
1880 – The American Shoals Lighthouse was first lighted.
1935 – The Pulaski Shoals Lighthouse was first lighted.
1953 – The Monroe County Commission approved a 99-year lease of $1 a year with the Key West Lions Club for a bay bottom site on North Roosevelt Boulevard.
1954 – Thirty-three cases of polio had been reported in Key West for the year.
1956 – Key West city commissioners declared that home and business owners who did not connect to the city sewer system after having received formal notification to do so would be arrested. It was hoped 1,200 property owners would have connected by this time, but only 700 had done so.
1961 – Monroe County Commissioner Clarence Higgs died suddenly at his Grinnell Street home in Key West at age 59. Higgs had been on the commission since 1944, and he was active in organized labor, having served as business manager of the local Carpenters’ Union for 22 years.
1970 – The Key West Housing Authority celebrated the ground-breaking for a 200-unit senior citizen high-rise on Kennedy Drive.
1986 – Cocaine was becoming an increasing problem in the Florida Keys: Since August 1985, 129 people had been arrested in Monroe County on cocaine-related charges, and four had died from overdoses of the drug since January.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: "Welcome to Clarence S. Higgs Memorial Beach" sign, Key West, ca. 1970. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
