March 12

The Main Gate to the Trumbo Point annex of Naval Air Station Key West, 1940s.

1905 – F.C. Brossier of Key West was commissioned as a colonel of the Florida State Troops. He had been in the service for 16 years and was first commissioned captain in the Island City Guard.

1926 – The Junior Ku Klux Klan burned a cross between 10 and 11 o’clock in the vicinity of the “second Martello tower.” They first attended the Congregational Church in regalia and afterward paraded through the town to the site where the cross was erected.

1940 – Capt. Walter F. Jacobs, Commander of the Key West Naval Station, turned the first shovel full of dirt to begin construction of the new Naval Air Station at Trumbo Point. The Ivy H. Smith Company of Jacksonville would build the hangar and other structures.

1946 – Thieves were taking flowers from graves in the Key West Cemetery and relocating them to other burial spots. The city’s Public Welfare Director was on alert and vowed to have any perpetrators arrested.  

1950 – The new prison camp on Big Pine Key was opened for inspection by the public.

1976 – Key West City Manager Ron Stack ordered the City Building Department to make inspections every other day of construction sites in the Old Town area, after residents complained of improper work being done on historic homes.

1983 – The USS Hercules, sixth of a squadron of fast missile-armed Navy hydrofoil ships based in Key West, was commissioned in a ceremony at Trumbo Point. Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, U.S. Navy retired, Chief of Staff to Vice President George Bush was the speaker.

1987 – The Holiday Inn-La Concha Hotel on Duval Street in Key West was reopened after a $20 million restoration.

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

Image: The Main Gate to the Trumbo Point annex of Naval Air Station Key West, 1940s. Scott DeWolfe Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.