July 28

Tank Island (Sunset Key) as seen from the Key West Naval Station in 1972.

1862 – John Bronson died of yellow fever, the first case of an epidemic that would claim the lives of 71 members of the 90th New York Regiment before it ended in October.

1936 – The Florida Road Department squelched rumors that the Card Sound Bridge had collapsed. The false story had been circulating throughout the Keys for a day.

1960 – Millionaire philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller sent the managers of his resort in the Virgin Islands to the Dry Tortugas with an eye towards developing a similar facility at Fort Jefferson in cooperation with the National Park Service.

1966 – Twenty-five-year-old Army Green Beret Captain and Key Wester Eckwood Solomon, Jr. was killed in Vietnam by a mine explosion. Solomon was a 1958 graduate of Key West High School, where he was a star basketball and baseball player.

1977 – Monroe County was ranked 13th in per capita income in Florida but also had the highest cost of living in the state. Monroe County had a per capita income of $5,478 compared to $6,940 in Palm Beach County, the State’s highest.

1993 – Tank Island in Key West Harbor went on the auction block with an opening bid of $25 million.

2006 – Three divers died and one was missing and presumed dead during the two-day lobster “mini-season” in the Florida Keys. Another five divers had been reported missing but were later found; the Coast Guard also responded to many injuries including several propeller cuts.

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

Image: Tank Island (Sunset Key) as seen from the Key West Naval Station in 1972. From the Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.