March 2

Drivers lined up on 12th Street and Flagler Avenue in Key West, waiting for their automobile safety inspection, ca. 1955.

1911 – The Key West City Directory listed 30 cigar manufacturers on the island.

1923 – United Daughters of the Confederacy representative Mrs. M.E. Bond of Macon, Georgia, visited the Harris School in Key West in the hope of establishing a chapter of the Children of the Confederacy there.

1927 – The Key West Junior Woman’s Club was created under the direction of Mrs. Andrew Miller, past president of the Woman’s Club.

1946 – Two hundred eighty automobiles were inspected by Key West City Mechanic Horace Averette, who tested their brakes, horns, and lights as mandated by city ordinance. 

1954 – Six Navy men were killed when two helicopters collided midair over Fleming Key. The planes attached to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron One had just taken off from the Trumbo Point base.

1976 – A patron of the Overseas Bar in Marathon sued the establishment for $1 million after a bartender struck him over the head with a wooden club in a dispute over a bar bill. The man complained he suffered permanent injuries with a resulting loss of income.

1981 – A backhoe loaded on a truck crossing the Seven Mile Bridge hit the bridge tender’s shack and ruptured a 1,000-gallon propane tank, igniting a fire that killed the bridge tender, Peter C. Fancher. It also destroyed the swing bridge mechanisms. The bridge was closed for 22 hours; the swing bridge was never repaired and was removed when the new Seven Mile Bridge opened.

2006 – Hugh Morgan, the only federal magistrate judge in the Florida Keys, announced he would soon retire from the position after 24 years of service. A rotation of federal magistrate judges from Miami would travel to Key West weekly to fulfill the duties of the office.

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

Image: Drivers lined up on 12th Street and Flagler Avenue in Key West, waiting for their automobile safety inspection, ca. 1955. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.