July 19
- Florida Keys History Center
- Jul 18
- 1 min read

1907 – The Excavator No.1 boat was blown up and destroyed by a gasoline explosion while employed on the Florida East Coast Railroad extension. Capt. Benjamin Peacon and Sonny Parks of Key West were severely burned and brought to the island for treatment.
1923 – Rear Admiral Charles D. Sigsbee, U.S. Navy retired, died at his home in New York. He was captain of the Battleship Maine when it was destroyed in Havana in 1898, which resulted in the war with Spain.
1925 – General John J. Pershing arrived by train and transferred to the USS Rochester for a trip to South America via the Panama Canal.
1942 – The merchant vessel Baja California was sunk 42 miles northeast of the Dry Tortugas by the German submarine U-84 and the merchant vessel Port Antonio was sunk 95 miles of southwest of the Dry Tortugas by German submarine U-129.
1943 – The Monroe County School Board named William W. Demeritt acting superintendent of public instruction.
1963 – Creston Jackson of Pirate’s Cove offered land on Sugarloaf Key as a site for a proposed Monroe Junior College. Jackson and his partners owned most of the undeveloped land on Sugarloaf, and he said the school board could “select a site from a 2,000-acre tract of prime natural hammock.”
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Excavator No. 1 boat used in building the Oversea Railroad. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.