March 31

Aerial view of Key West International Airport and the East Martello Tower, ca. 1950.

1898 – Five bodies recovered from the Battleship Maine were buried in the Battleship Maine Plot in the Key West City Cemetery.

1952 – The skeletal remains of Lelanette Roberts were found on Saddlebunch Key. Roberts had vanished without a trace on August 7, 1949.

1956 – Congressman Dante Fascell advised that the deed from the Navy to Monroe County for the 17.5-acre Martello tract at the airport had cleared the Justice Department and would be filed at the county courthouse at any time. The property transfer would allow construction of a new airport terminal to move forward.

1971 – Racial unrest over the arrest of a 15-year-old led to two Key West buildings being firebombed. The Benitez Grocery at Simonton Street was damaged in an attack that may have been a distraction for the later torching of Padron’s Grocery at 800 Whitehead Street, which was destroyed.

1976 – The Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority warned the system was suffering an acute water shortage and that all water consumption be cut to “the absolute minimum.” The desalination plant on Stock Island had been running non-stop for three months without maintenance, and water reserves were at a three-day supply. 

1977 – Berlin A. Sawyer, who served as sheriff of Monroe County for 12 years, from 1940 to 1952, died at age 94.

1979 – The movie “The Last Resort” (aka “Tropic of Desire”) was being filmed in Key West.

1980 – Congressman Dante Fascell announced that the Navy would base a squadron of hydrofoil ships in Key West.

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

Image: Aerial view of Key West International Airport and the East Martello Tower, ca. 1950. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.