June 22

The USS Sea Poacher (SS 406) off Key West on August 23, 1963.

1924 – A party of Key Westers, returning from Dog Rocks at the Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas, released four dozen whelks they had brought in near Sand Key. They hoped the whelks would thrive, as many Keys residents considered the whelk tastier than the conch.

1938 – Miss Bernice Brantley was acclaimed Miss Key West and Queen of the Overseas Highway Celebration, July 2-4, at the Cabaret Dance at the Habana Madrid.

1940 – Construction of a new hangar was underway at the Navy’s Trumbo Island airbase. When completed, the structure would be 372 feet long, 250 feet wide, and 50 feet tall, large enough to house all the planes of the neutrality patrol on duty at Key West.

1962 – The submarine USS Sea Poacher (SS 406) recorded its 5,000th dive in Gulf Stream waters off Key West. Sea Poacher was launched in 1944 and had been in Key West since 1951.

1965 – The Garrison Bight causeway bridge was officially opened by Monroe County Mayor Gerald Saunders, Key West Mayor Kermit Lewin and Rear Admiral Thomas A. Christopher.

2010 – Traffic on the Seven Mile Bridge was slowed by a “rolling roadblock,” for the filming of the BBC television program “Top Gear.” Regular traffic was allowed to advance one mile behind an automobile racing a seaplane while being filmed from a helicopter.

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

Image: The USS Sea Poacher (SS 406) off Key West on August 23, 1963. From the Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.