October 6

Windley Key on March 7, 1956.

1901 – Harry Bentley, who tended a fruit plantation at East Cape Sable, died unexpectedly of natural causes. Bentley was a native of England but had distanced himself from family and become a recluse at the remote mainland Monroe County farm.

1914 – Nelson Francis de Sales English died in Key West at the age of 66. He had worked for the post office for more than 20 years and served as postmaster of Key West from 1882 to 1886, the only man of African descent to hold that office. He was also a talented musician and with his friend Frank Welters founded the famous Welters Cornet Band.

1930 – R.C. Perky of Sugarloaf Key was seeking an injunction against 103 Key West spongers to prevent them from taking sponges in Sugarloaf Sound.

1940 – Karl Tanzler was arrested when it was discovered that he had kept the body of Elena Hoyos Mesa. Tanzler had been employed at the Marine Hospital as an X-ray technician when Hoyos was admitted with tuberculosis, from which she later died. She was first buried in the cemetery, but he later removed the body to his home.

1960 – Canvassers for the R.L. Polk Co. were going door-to-door in Key West to gather information on island residents and businesses for the new city directory.

1985 – The State of Florida purchased the old rock quarry on Windley Key for $2.3 million under its Conservation and Recreational Lands program. The keystone quarry features spectacular fossilized reef structures in its 18-foot vertical walls that tell the geological history of the Upper Florida Keys.

1987 – A majority of Monroe County voters said no to a referendum that proposed a one-cent sales tax for capital improvements.

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

Image: Windley Key on March 7, 1956. From the archives of Edwin O. Swift III. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.