October 4

A building with dark shutters and a sign that reads Islamorada Branch Monroe county Public Library.

1825 – The brig Hercules from Mobile was floated off the reef at Key Largo and taken to Key West. The wreckers were awarded a salvage fee of 31½ percent on a vessel insured for $200,000.

1916 – Key Wester George W. Allen was nominated as the Progressive Party candidate for Florida governor. Allen had already been nominated by Republicans as their candidate, and the two parties believed their joint support was more likely to get him elected.

1925 – Jose Perez Rollo and Enrique Esquinaldo were named as the advertising committee for Key West’s upcoming Grito de Yara celebration, which honored the 1868 revolutionary battle of Yara that ultimately liberated Cuba from Spain. Many officials from Havana were expected to attend.

1935 – An avocado tree owned by Arthur Armayor of Windsor Lane in Key West produced a single cluster of 32 “pears.” For safety, the bunch was cut down and taken inside. Hundreds of visitors came to see the fruit and pronounced it “the most wonderful exhibit of its nature they had ever seen.”

1954 – The Navy’s first Underwater Swimmer School was commissioned in Building 107 on the Naval Station with Lt. R.J. Fay as commanding officer.

1985 – The Monroe County Commission named the public library branch at Islamorada in honor of the branch’s librarian, Helen Wadley.

1988 – Voters denied the city of Key West authority to issue bonds to buy the Salt Pond tract that now has the Ocean Walk Apartments and Las Salinas Condominiums.

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

Image: Monroe County Public Library at Islamorada on Upper Matecumbe Key, ca. 1965. PB 1-41, Pt Gov Lot 1-2, Sec 32, Pt Gov Lot 2, Sec 33, G4-189p, G6-86. Photo taken by the Property Appraisers office. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.