1832 – It was reported that there were 21 deaths at Key West in 1831: “13 residents, 8 non-residents; 18 adults and three children under 7 years; 18 males and three females; 17 white and four colored.”
1908 – In commencement exercises held at the San Carlos, Lancelot Lester became the first graduate of Key West High School.
1924 – The value of property on Big Pine Key was “looking up,” as three different developers were making subdivisions on the island, and the attractiveness of the island was being advertised in Miami.
1937 – Plans for a Civilian Conservation Corps “side camp” at Fort Jefferson National Monument were announced. The unit of 25 men would be employed in removing hurricane-damaged portions of the barracks and the coaling station. They would also construct a new wharf and custodian’s quarters.
1941 – Senator Claude Pepper took the stage at the Strand Theater in Key West and denounced Col. Charles Lindbergh as “a hero with feet of clay.” Pepper said Lindbergh, through his efforts to prevent American aid to Britain against Nazi attack, was essentially working for Adolf Hitler.
1966 – PFC Richard Recupero, a Key West native, was killed in action in Vietnam. Recupero’s wife and two-week-old son he had never seen lived in Norfolk.
1980 – Two boats every five minutes were being launched at Garrison Bight to form an armada of small craft bound to Cuba in hope of bringing their families to the U.S. The total number of refugees that had arrived in Key West was estimated at 765.
1982 – Governor Bob Graham was in Key West to deliver the commencement speech at the Community College and said that the mock secession by the Conch Republic was deft and appropriate.
1985 – Writer Alison Lurie, a winter resident of Key West, won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel “Foreign Affairs.”
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, and Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Boats at Garrison Bight ready to leave for Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. From the Dale McDonald Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.