May 13
- Florida Keys History Center
- May 12
- 2 min read
1898 – A brief funeral service was held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for Ensign Worth Bagely who was killed when enemy gunfire hit the USS Winslow off the coast of Cuba. His body was then shipped to North Carolina for burial.
1935 – The final report for the 1935 Florida census showed there were 12,470 people in Key West and 865 living in other areas of Monroe County.
1955 – Mike Warren, who operated the stand in the lobby of the federal building on Simonton Street in Key West for the Florida State Service for the Blind, was named “Lion of the Year” by the Key West Lions Club.
1956 – Naval Station Key West began accepting bids on 46 lots of surplus gyroscopic, navigational, and submarine spare parts.
1970 – The 42nd Annual Convention of the Florida State Firemen’s Association was held in Marathon.
1983 – Old Town Trolley, owned by Ed Swift and Chris Belland, purchased the Conch Train from Miami-based Wometco Enterprises. Bill and Olive Kroll, who founded the train in January 1958, sold the business to Wometco in 1972.
1997 – The movie “Shadow Warriors: Assault on Devil’s Island,” starring wrestler-turned-actor Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, was being filmed in Key West and the Dry Tortugas.
2011 – Concerned divers and the city of Key West began crafting a plan to stabilize two massive dish-type antennae on the wreck of the Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The 22-foot-tall, 80-ton structures were beginning to come loose, and it was feared they would fall in a storm.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: USNS Gen Hoyt S. Vandenberg off Key West in May 2009, before it was sunk as an artificial reef. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
