October 25
- Florida Keys History Center
- Oct 24
- 2 min read
1901 – The United States dredge boat Winyah Bay competed its work on the northwest channel and steamers could go through at low tide. The depth was about 15 feet, which was ample for the boats that used that channel. Larger vessels used the main channel and southwest channel, which had enough water for the largest vessels.
1923 – The 25 cigar factories of Key West were producing over 60 million cigars annually.
1935 – The Monroe County Jail qualified as a facility where federal prisoners could be held, and five aliens captured in Key West were promptly put into the facility for January trials. Federal offenders from the Keys had previously been taken to Miami.
1950 – The Navy announced plans for 1,000 new housing units at Dredgers Key (now Sigsbee Park), Trumbo Point, and the old Army Barracks (now Peary Court). The old and dilapidated housing at the Army Barracks and Rest Beach were torn down.
1960 – Four small aircraft carrying Cubans fleeing the Castro regime landed across the Florida Keys: two in Key West, one in Marathon, and one at Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas. One of the planes was riddled with bullet holes, and a biplane had carried a man who sat on the wing and held onto a strut.
1994 – Delio Cobo, retired dentist, died at age 83. He had served on the Key West City Commission, Utility Board and the board of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority. He also was Mayor of Key West from 1957 to 1961 and from 1969 to 1971.
2015 – Keys Energy offered the City of Key West its abandoned diesel generator plant, a three-building complex bounded by Angela, Fort, and Geraldine streets. City officials were pleased by the offer, but acceptance of the 100+-year-old “as is” property would ultimately be decided by voters.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The old City Electric power plant between Angela and Geraldine Streets in Key West. Wright Langley Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
