March 6
- Florida Keys History Center
- Mar 6
- 2 min read
1859 – The schooner Hermitage arrived at Key West from the Dry Tortugas with the crew of the brig Martha Regan, a supposed slave ship purposefully driven onto a shoal near the Marquesas Keys “to destroy all evidences of a successful slave trip to Cuba.”
1911 – The Key West Police Headquarters was at City Hall on Greene Street. The Chief of Police was W.J. Gardner and the Sergeant was C.F. Albury. Patrolmen were John Pent, Edward Albury, J.J. Kirschenbaurn, R.T. Hicks, James Hopkins, J.E. Thompson, J.N. Bissell, W.A. Fagan, John Cash, C. Elwood and Leroy Shehee.
1924 – Alfred Atchison, age 64, died in his home on Olivia Street. Atchison was known by the nickname “Bubba Smart” and was the last man to be called the “King of the Wreckers.”
1929 – The Overseas Highway from the Dade County line to Key West was taken over by the state road department for maintenance. The county had initially maintained the road, which was built with Monroe County bonds.
1946 – The Key West Businesswoman’s Association met at the Island Inn Hotel and selected officers: Effie M. Pauls, president; Mary Lee Graham, vice-president; Hilda Salas, 2nd vice-president; Marie Hartel, treasurer, and Hildegarde Ott Russell, secretary.
1960 – The Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools approved Key West’s Douglass School for accreditation.
1969 – The National Society of the United States Daughters of 1812 placed markers on the Key West graves of two veterans of the War of 1812: Thomas Romer, born in Nassau in 1783, and died in Key West in 1891, and Alexander Patterson who was born Connecticut in 1791, and died in Key West in 1870.
1976 – Huddle Pontiac Buick of Key West became an authorized dealer of the electric Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar. The two-passenger vehicle had a 38-mph cruising speed and a maximum range of 50 miles, with a base price of $2,738.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Huddle Pontiac Buick car dealership, 1300 Duval Street, ca. 1980. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
