20 Years ago

[Bobcat]

1963 Two reporters from the Key West Citizen visited No Name Key to investigate reports that anti-Castro revolutionaries were using the island for training. They found a secret camp with nine young Cubans training on the island. At that time there was no bridge to the island off Big Pine Key



On this day: April 10

The first Arbor Day is celebrated, the Titanic sets sail, "The Great Gatsby" is published, Paul McCartney quits The Beatles, and the U.S. and China engage in "ping-pong diplomacy,"

 

[Bobcat]

1964 Charter Capt. Douglas Trevor and his son Edward, who served as mate, were killed by 17-year-old Roger Foster who had chartered the boat. The Trevors' bodies were never found. Foster pleaded insanity and after treatment was tried for murder in 1977 and sentenced to prison.

 

[Bobcat]

1960 In reaction to publication of a pro-Castro letter the City Commission voted to remove the Cuban flag from City Hall and have all city employees take a loyalty oath

 

[Bobcat]

1941 Karl Tanzler, a.k.a. Von Cosel, the man who had kept the remains of Elena Hoyos Mesa for seven years until discovered in October 1940, left Key West for Zephyrhills. Hours after he left town, the tomb he had built for Elena in the Key West Cemetery was destroyed by a violent explosion.



1980 President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would accept up to 3,500 Cubans who were seeking asylum in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana.



1984 Two people were killed when a single-engine plane crashed into a Seminary Street house shortly after taking off from Key West International Airport. The house suffered some damage from fire but no one inside was injured.


The tomb of Elena M. Hoyos in 1940. Photo by Stetson Kennedy.

 

[Bobcat]

1982 The U.S. Border Patrol established a roadblock at Florida City and began checking everyone leaving the Florida Keys, causing a 15-mile traffic jam. The Border Patrol had received information that illegal aliens were entering the country via the Keys.

 

[Bobcat]

1982 The roadblock, established by the U.S. Border Patrol to check the citizenship of everyone leaving Monroe County, continued despite efforts by locals to have it removed.

 

[old377guy]

have they cleared that up yet

 

[Bobcat]

Just beginning

 

[Bobcat]

1901 The schooner Harris Bros. sank after colliding with the schooner Queen near Key Largo. The night was extremely dark and neither boat had a light. The Queen struck the Harris Bros. just aft of the fore rigging, causing damage to itself and sinking the Harris Bros.
(Too many jokes for this one:rofl

1980 Key West fishing boats Dos Hermanos and Blanche III arrived in Key West with 48 Cuban refugees, officially starting the Mariel Boat Lift. By the end of the boat lift in late summer more than 130,000 refugees had arrived in Key West.

1982 A group of locals led by attorney David Paul Horan filed suit in federal court in Miami to have the U.S. Border Patrol's roadblock at Florida City removed.

 

[Bobcat]

1898 The Navy was ordered to blockade the coast of Cuba. The USS Nashville, about 12 miles south of Sand Key, took the Spanish steamer Buena Ventura as the first prize in the war with Spain.

1898 The city went wild over news that the fleet had departed and war with Spain had begun. The Cuban and American flags were on every house and the San Carlos was covered in red, white and blue bunting.

1953 The crew filming the movie "12 Mile Reef" arrived and took over the Casa Marina Hotel. The movie stared Terry Moore, Robert Wagner, Gilbert Roland and J. Carroll Nash, who arrived with the rest of the crew. Seventy-five locals were used as extras.

 

[Bobcat]

1980 The Monroe County Sheriff's Office reported a steady stream of boats being trailered south as the Miami exile community converged on Key West to sail to Cuba to pick up relatives that the Castro regime was reportedly letting leave. By the end of the day, 280 Cuban refugees had arrived in Key West, with another 68 landing in Miami.



1982 The Florida Keys officially seceded from the Union in a mock ceremony to protest the Border Patrol's roadblock at Florida City to check the citizenship of everyone leaving Monroe County. Traffic delays caused had resulted in a dramatic drop in tourist traffic to the Keys. Prime Minister Dennis Wardlow then announced the establishment of the Conch Republic.

 

[Bobcat]

1982 The Keys tourism business claimed that the U.S. Border Patrol roadblock, established to check the citizenship of everyone leaving the Florida Keys, had frightened away legitimate traffic to the Keys.

 

[Ratickle]

1982 The Florida Keys officially seceded from the Union ............ Prime Minister Dennis Wardlow then announced the establishment of the Conch Republic.

Are you sure it wasn't because they heard from a respected fortune teller that Obama Care was coming???????

 

[old377guy]

I think you're on to something there Paul

 

[fund razor]

Are you sure it wasn't because they heard from a respected fortune teller that Obama Care was coming???????

Back then, the greatest threat of socialism was in Cuba.

Would the fortune teller have predicted what we have now?

 

[Bobcat]

1980 Two boats were being launched every five minutes at Garrison Bight to form an armada bound for Cuba in hopes of bringing locals' families to the United States. The total number of refugees that already had arrived in Key West was estimated at 765.

1982 Gov. Bob Graham was in Key West to deliver the commencement speech at the Community College. He said that the mock secession by the Conch Republic was deft and appropriate.

 

[Bobcat]

1951 A Compania Cubana de Aviacion four-motor aircraft, carrying 34 passengers and a five-man crew flying from Miami to Havana, collided with a Navy SNB-5 trainer with a two-man crew. Both planes crashed into the sea off South Beach with no survivors. The investigation later found both planes at fault in the accident.


1980 The Coast Guard ordered extra cutters to the Florida Straits to handle the increased flow of refugees from Cuba. It was the beginning of the largest peacetime operation in Coast Guard history.

1980 More than 2,000 small boats and a large fleet of commercial fishing boats had left Key West for the Port of Mariel. More than 1,200 refugees had landed in Key West since the boatlift began.

 

[Bobcat]

ON THIS DAY IN:

1942 The USS Sturtevant (DD-240) leaving Key West via the Northwest Channel, strayed into the Navy's minefield and was sunk, with a loss of 17 men.

1974 Markers were installed designating the highway from Key West to Florida City the Harry S. Truman Overseas Highway.

1980 Over 1,000 Cuban refugees arrived in Key West, pushing the week's total to about 2,500. Hundreds of other boats ignored government warnings, high winds and seas to cross to Cuba to pick up more refugees.

1980 The U.S. Customs Service begins seizing boats returning from Cuba for landing illegal aliens in the United States.

1982 The Monroe County Commission passed, by unanimous vote, a resolution calling for an immediate end to the U.S. Boarder Patrol's roadblock at Florida City.

 

[Ratickle]

That boat lift from Cuba was something else. The thoughts on both sides were passionate. It only became personal later in my life when I found out a relatives father was one of those who had made it. He was a minister under Batista and had been in jail after the Castro coup until he was released during that time and made it to the US to join all of the women and children who had escaped over 15 years earlier.

 

[Bobcat]

Here's a pretty powerful photo.




1980 A squall line lasting 45 minutes swept across the island and the Straits of Florida. Wind gusts up to 73 mph were recorded on the island. The winds hit the Cuban boatlift, sinking a number of craft and leaving at least a dozen dead. At one point during the storm, the Coast Guard center in Key West received 22 Mayday calls in five minutes.

1980 The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Dallas, Capt. William J. BrogdonJr. in command, arrived in the area and assumed duty as the On-Scene Commander for the Mariel boatlift.

1992 The film "Matinee," starring John Goodman, began shooting on Smathers Beach.