October 4
1911 – Mrs. Eliza Cleare died at age 105. She was born at Harbor Island, Bahamas, on April 14, 1806, and had come to Key West in 1886.
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.
1956 – Jon P. Goggin was elected president of the Marathon Chamber of Commerce. Goggin was the Monroe County Engineer, and he had been active in Marathon civic affairs for the previous six years.
1966 – Bob Richman’s “The Country Gent” store in Key West’s Sears Town was destroyed in an overnight blaze. A faulty neon lighting fixture was thought to have been the cause. Richman had moved the store from Duval Street only nine months earlier.
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: The opening of Bob Richman's (R) "The Country Gent" store in Key West's Sears Town, 1966. Photo by Don Pinder. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
