May 11
- Florida Keys History Center
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read

1929 – Florida Motor Lines was planning an intensive advertising campaign throughout Florida to make Key West the tourist mecca of the state.
1967 – The Florida Keys Aqueduct commissioners were present as the first fresh water flowed from the new desalination plant. The $3.3 million desalting plant produced 2.62 million gallons of fresh water a day and ended a critical water shortage.
1971 – Florida Secretary of State Richard Stone announced that Fort Taylor and the Key West Armory had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
1975 – Congress allocated $126,000 to the Manpower Planning Council to employ 225 Monroe County youth over the coming summer. The young workers, between the ages of 14 and 21, would each be granted 210 hours of work at an hourly rate of $2.10.
1980 – A one-day record of 5,117 refugees arrived at Key West during the boatlift from Mariel, Cuba.
1990 – Two Philadelphia tourists filed a lawsuit against a popular Middle Keys swim-with-the-dolphins program. The pair claimed a dolphin they were swimming with became agitated and rammed them, breaking one’s arm and the other’s ribs.
1995 – Department of Defense representatives were meeting with Monroe County officials and environmentalists to discuss the possible construction of new missile launch sites at either Boca Chica, Saddlebunch, or Cudjoe keys. The plan was to build pads for 44-foot Hera Block 1 missiles.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Cuban refugees crowd Key West's Truman Annex Pier B during the Mariel boat lift 1980. Wright Langley collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.