1830 – William R. Hackley recorded in his diary: The Schooner Mayflower is ready for sea and the Captain desired Brother to go on board which he did but he then decided that the schooner should not sail until tomorrow. The Sloop John Denison arrived from Charleston this morning. Mr. Porter and the Misses Reams came as passengers on her. Colonel Pardon Greene went over to Havana yesterday afternoon on one of the Spanish schooners from Charlotte Harbor and Richard Fitzpatrick went over in a smack. Received no letter or papers by the Denison for which I cannot account as she brought the mail and I known that there must be letters for me in Charleston. Wind northeast and blows quite fresh.
1862 – The 47th Pennsylvania Regiment arrived in Key West on the steamer Cosmopolitan and relieved the 90th New York that sailed on the Cosmopolitan.
1933 – Work started excavating and leveling the land besides Mallory Dock for the Key West Aquarium. The work was under the supervision of Dr. Robert O. Van Deusen and F.W. Knapp.
1952 – The State Board of Health reported that the leading cause of death in Monroe County in 1951 was heart disease with 75 deaths out of a population 32,720. Cancer was the second killer with 37 deaths. Infant mortality was the third cause of death with 33 babies never reaching their first birthday.
1955 – The West India Fruit and Steamship Company’s Key West to Havana ferry completed testing in the Chesapeake Bay. The City of Havana was a 472-foot former Navy LSD that was converted to an automobile-passenger ferry by the Newport News Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company.
Burl Ives in Key West. Photo by Don Pinder.
1956 – Singer and actor Burl Ives was spending the holidays in the Keys on a chartered sailing vessel.
1961 – Actress Tallulah Bankhead arrived for the Christmas holidays. She was visiting her friend, author and playwright James Leo Herlihy.
1975 – Key West Policeman Norman Drew was killed in a traffic accident while answering a call on lower Duval Street.
1986 – The movie “Russkies” was being filmed in Key West.
1990 – The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the population of Monroe County was 78,024 of whom 29,073 was in Key West. This compares to the 1960 Census, which reported that Monroe County had 47,921 people, of whom 33,956 lived in Key West.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library.
Images:
1) Judy Fryzel, left, by the Cuban ferry City of Havana on Stock Island circa1950s. Gift Winifred Fryzel. https://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/8750051797
2) Burl Ives in Key West with Margaret Foresman. Photo by Don Pinder. https://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/12387039763
Both: Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library.