May 21
- Florida Keys History Center
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
1850 – The steamer Creole, carrying General Narciso Lopez and his rebel army fleeing the failed invasion of Spanish Cuba, entered the port of Key West. The Creole came in only minutes ahead of the Spanish warship Pizarro, which had been giving chase across the Florida Straits. At the dock, the Creole raised the American flag, and the Pizarro left the area without success.
1911 – Norberg Thompson began work on a building on Caroline Street in Key West to be used for the manufacture of wooden cigar boxes. The boxes were used by the local cigar factories.
1926 – The shipment of Cuban pineapples from Key West by train was stymied when 150 men who transferred the fruit from the steamships to the rails walked off the job, demanding 60 cents an hour instead of 50 cents. The pineapple season was at its peak, and 160 railcar loads had shipped the day before.
1936 – A group of Key West girls requested Information from the Girl Scouts organization’s national headquarters about organizing a troop on the island. Mrs. Charles Roberts and Eva B. Warner were sponsors.
1960 – Bobby Harris, Key West High School track team, won the first State of Florida High School Pentathlon Championship at a meet in Fort Lauderdale.
1966 – The Lighthouse Museum opened in the former lighthouse keeper’s quarters in Key West. The museum, operated by the Key West Art & Historical Society, featured the military history of the island.
1995 – Three persons were killed when a speed boat rammed a dock near Plantation Key.
2001 – Keys law enforcement officials were warning residents that an email circulating through the islands asking for recipients to provide personal information to receive a share of $44 million from overseas was a scam.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Florida East Coast Railway, Key West Extension. Cuban pineapples being repacked at the Trumbo Point railroad yard for shipment to the North. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
