November 22

Ed Barry's airstrip on Big Pine Key, with No Name Key in the background, 1950's.

1901 – The population of Monroe County by the 1900 census was 18,066, with 17,114 in the city of Key West, and the remainder of 364 in the Key Largo district, 216 in the Matecumbe district and 282 in the Chokoloskee district. 

1909 – The 1160-ton, four-masted schooner Medford, which had sunk weeks earlier in Key West Harbor during a storm, was formally abandoned by its Boston owners after they determined the cost of recovering the vessel and its cargo of gravel was simply too much.    

1930 – Arthur Tagle, a Key West resident, died in a Havana hospital after having been shot days earlier during a riot. A witness said Tagle had just arrived onto the riot scene and was promptly struck by a machete-wielding soldier. As Tagle struggled against the soldier’s blows, a policeman approached and shot him.  

1938 – Colonel Fulgencio Batista, Chief of the Cuban Army, arrived in Key West where he spoke at the San Carlos Institute and laid a wreath at the Battleship Maine Plot in the cemetery. 

1960 – After the accidental shooting of a Miami man on No Name Key, Monroe County Sheriff’s officials denied reports the island was being used as an amphibious invasion training ground by Cuban refugees. Instead, they said, it was a group of unemployed drifters who had decided to “live off the land” of the remote key.    

1978 – The short film “The Key West Picture Show” was awarded three medals at the Greater Miami International Film Festival. 

2010 – Tegu lizards were being found in Florida City and along the 18 Mile Stretch, and wildlife officials warned it was inevitable the invasive creatures would make their way to the Florida Keys, if they had not already. The giant black-and-white tegus could reach lengths of four feet and had voracious appetites.   

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

Image: Ed Barry's airstrip on Big Pine Key, with No Name Key in the background, 1950's. Copyright Edwin O. Swift Jr. from the archives of Edwin O. Swift III. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.