1836 – Key West Collector of Customs and Superintendent of Lights Wm. A. Whitehead issued the following notice: “In consequence of the encroachments of the Indians, and their depredations along the coast, the Light House at Cape Florida has been abandoned.”
1891 – In the early morning hours, thieves blew open the safe at the Key West Post Office and made off with $2,100 in cash. They also stole 24 registered letters that contained a large amount of money.
1910 – All the concrete railroad piers had been completed from Knight’s Key to Pigeon Key, and half from there to Moser Channel. To aid the progress, the camp at West Summerland Key was to be closed and the workforce moved to Pigeon Key.
1926 – The Key West chapter of the Ku Klux Klan initiated 20 new members, all dressed in full regalia, before the audience of the Bob Morton traveling circus, which had been brought to the island under sponsorship of the organization.
1929 – New York Yankee Star Lou Gehrig and Gene Byrnes, cartoonist for the New York Herald Tribune, were in Key West and visited St. Joseph’s school for boys.
2000 – Edward Ciesinski, the first captain to run a tourist dive boat in Key West, died at the age of 91.
2005 – Monroe County School District student enrollment was 8,602, down 8% from the previous school year’s 9,123.
2008 – The City of Marathon hired a new code enforcement officer to crack down on the growing number of illegal, unlicensed vacation rental homes.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: The Pigeon Key Camp of the Florida East Coast Railway Company taken from the temporary dock about 1910. Concrete railroad piers are to the right. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center