September 27
1864 – Two soldiers were arrested at the Dry Tortugas after they forged an order for whiskey and presented it to the commissary. When the supply officer detected the fraud, they began to throw bricks at him. The men were court-martialed and ordered to spend 30 days wearing a ball and chain with no pay.
1951 – Allen B. Cleare, a native of Harbour Island in the Bahamas, died in Key West at age 77. He had served on the Key West City Commission and Monroe County School Board and was mayor of Key West from 1917 to 1919.
1954 – Key West Police Chief Bienvenido Perez continued a crackdown on vice in the city by personally conducting a raid of the Mardi Gras Club on Duval Street. Three women were arrested and charged with “participating in a performance of an indecent and immoral nature.” The club manager was arrested, too.
1963 – Roger A. Foster, who was accused of murdering Key West captain Douglas Trevor and his son Edward on the charter boat Dream Girl, was found to be insane and committed to the state mental institution. He would later be judged competent and then tried and convicted for the murders.
1976 – Members of the Army Special Forces underwater team issued a warning to other divers that they had seen a 12-foot, 1,800-pound great white shark in the waters off Sand Key. It was the second sighting of the creature in the area in six weeks.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The interior of the Mardi Gras Night Club at 92 Duval Street, 1950s. From the Jeff Brodhead Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
