Headlines
20 Years ago
- Thread starter Bobcat
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Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Do they have a nude bar on the roof?
Bobcat
Founding Member
1941 All local military personnel were put on the highest state of readiness after the Japanese attacked the United States forces at Pearl Harbor.
1955 Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro spoke to a group of about 300 in a parking lot on Stock Island. He had attempted to speak in the city but was blocked in this effort.
1955 Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro spoke to a group of about 300 in a parking lot on Stock Island. He had attempted to speak in the city but was blocked in this effort.
Bobcat
Founding Member
Fidel spoke on Stock Island in '55
Cuban revolutionary was denied permission to speak in Key West
BY TERRY SCHMIDA Citizen Staff
tschmida@keysnews.com
Fifty-eight years ago today, a clean-shaven man in a blue wool suit knocked on the door of the Whitehead Street home of then-San Carlos Institute President Julio Cabanas and introduced himself.
"Are you Julio Cabanas?" the visitor inquired. "I'm Dr. Fidel Castro."
Though he was fairly well-known among the Cuban Conch community at the time, there was little inkling that this firebrand revolutionary standing at Cabanas' doorstep would one day become the leader of the island nation to the south. There were even fewer hints that all these decades later, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who formally handed over the presidency of the country to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2008, would remain a thorn in the side of the U.S. government.
As the years and decades have passed, it's becoming harder to find Key Westers who even remember Castro's short visit.
In a Dec. 9, 1955, article in the Key West Citizen, the future Cuban president was described as "an alleged Cuban revolutionary plotter, reportedly touring the United States in an effort to gain support of his plans to unseat President Fulgencio Batista."
Denied permission to speak publicly at the Elks Lodge on Duval Street, Castro was forced to give his talk in the parking lot of the Stock Island dog racing track instead.
At the time, legendary Key West physician Dr. Julio dePoo, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, described Castro's talk as "a nice meeting."
Decades later, in a Citizen article from Dec. 2, 1996, Julio Cabanas, by then 79, remembered the visit as a watershed event in Cuba-Key West relations.
"The proximity of Cuba made Key West important to [Cuban revolutionary Jose] Marti as well as Castro, because it's the city in Florida that has had the longest and closest relationship with Havana," Cabanas said then.
Now that both dePoo and Cabanas are gone, the details of Castro's visit are slowly being lost to history, as fewer and fewer survive to tell the tale.
"No newspaper publicity was given to the meeting, and so far as can be ascertained, no member of the press was present at the meeting," the 1955 Citizen article observed dryly.
There was a reason for that.
Back then, as now, there were strong disagreements between local Cubans and Cuban-Americans over the political situation on the island nation to the south.
"Cabanas was the president of the San Carlos Institute and was pro-Castro," explained Tom Hambright, a historian with the Monroe County Library. "But a lot of other people were anti-Castro. At the time, the chief of the Key West Police Department was pro-Batista, and would travel to Cuba every year to ride his motorcycle in the annual Carnival parade. So Castro was not allowed to speak in the city. The only venue he was able to arrange, apparently, was that Stock Island parking lot."
At the time of Castro's speech, the revolutionary had only recently been released from a Cuban jail for his part in an uprising at the Moncada Barracks in eastern Cuba.
By the end of the decade, he would be the unquestioned "jefe" of Cuba, and a new front in the rapidly overheating Cold War.
He may have been thwarted in his efforts to build support and raise money for his ultimate goal during the Key West visit, but in the end, he succeeded anyway.
The visit did change Key West in a sense, however.
"For one thing, Cabanas lost his job," Hambright said. "It was a big political thing. Nobody claimed that it was because of his support for Castro, but clearly it had something to do with it. There was a big contention between the opposing factions on the island. It's easy to forget how close the relationship between the two cities really was in those days."
Also, thanks to the controversy, there are no reported accounts of what Castro actually said in his speech.
"Unfortunately, our paper of record didn't send a reporter to cover the speech," Hambright said with a laugh.
"So we don't really know how it was received, or even how many people were actually there to hear it. I've heard stories of big numbers and small numbers -- depends on who's telling the story.
"But then, it was pretty early on for him at that point. He was really just getting started on his second revolution, as they called it."
tschmida@keysnews.com
Cuban revolutionary was denied permission to speak in Key West
BY TERRY SCHMIDA Citizen Staff
tschmida@keysnews.com
Fifty-eight years ago today, a clean-shaven man in a blue wool suit knocked on the door of the Whitehead Street home of then-San Carlos Institute President Julio Cabanas and introduced himself.
"Are you Julio Cabanas?" the visitor inquired. "I'm Dr. Fidel Castro."
Though he was fairly well-known among the Cuban Conch community at the time, there was little inkling that this firebrand revolutionary standing at Cabanas' doorstep would one day become the leader of the island nation to the south. There were even fewer hints that all these decades later, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who formally handed over the presidency of the country to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2008, would remain a thorn in the side of the U.S. government.
As the years and decades have passed, it's becoming harder to find Key Westers who even remember Castro's short visit.
In a Dec. 9, 1955, article in the Key West Citizen, the future Cuban president was described as "an alleged Cuban revolutionary plotter, reportedly touring the United States in an effort to gain support of his plans to unseat President Fulgencio Batista."
Denied permission to speak publicly at the Elks Lodge on Duval Street, Castro was forced to give his talk in the parking lot of the Stock Island dog racing track instead.
At the time, legendary Key West physician Dr. Julio dePoo, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, described Castro's talk as "a nice meeting."
Decades later, in a Citizen article from Dec. 2, 1996, Julio Cabanas, by then 79, remembered the visit as a watershed event in Cuba-Key West relations.
"The proximity of Cuba made Key West important to [Cuban revolutionary Jose] Marti as well as Castro, because it's the city in Florida that has had the longest and closest relationship with Havana," Cabanas said then.
Now that both dePoo and Cabanas are gone, the details of Castro's visit are slowly being lost to history, as fewer and fewer survive to tell the tale.
"No newspaper publicity was given to the meeting, and so far as can be ascertained, no member of the press was present at the meeting," the 1955 Citizen article observed dryly.
There was a reason for that.
Back then, as now, there were strong disagreements between local Cubans and Cuban-Americans over the political situation on the island nation to the south.
"Cabanas was the president of the San Carlos Institute and was pro-Castro," explained Tom Hambright, a historian with the Monroe County Library. "But a lot of other people were anti-Castro. At the time, the chief of the Key West Police Department was pro-Batista, and would travel to Cuba every year to ride his motorcycle in the annual Carnival parade. So Castro was not allowed to speak in the city. The only venue he was able to arrange, apparently, was that Stock Island parking lot."
At the time of Castro's speech, the revolutionary had only recently been released from a Cuban jail for his part in an uprising at the Moncada Barracks in eastern Cuba.
By the end of the decade, he would be the unquestioned "jefe" of Cuba, and a new front in the rapidly overheating Cold War.
He may have been thwarted in his efforts to build support and raise money for his ultimate goal during the Key West visit, but in the end, he succeeded anyway.
The visit did change Key West in a sense, however.
"For one thing, Cabanas lost his job," Hambright said. "It was a big political thing. Nobody claimed that it was because of his support for Castro, but clearly it had something to do with it. There was a big contention between the opposing factions on the island. It's easy to forget how close the relationship between the two cities really was in those days."
Also, thanks to the controversy, there are no reported accounts of what Castro actually said in his speech.
"Unfortunately, our paper of record didn't send a reporter to cover the speech," Hambright said with a laugh.
"So we don't really know how it was received, or even how many people were actually there to hear it. I've heard stories of big numbers and small numbers -- depends on who's telling the story.
"But then, it was pretty early on for him at that point. He was really just getting started on his second revolution, as they called it."
tschmida@keysnews.com
Bobcat
Founding Member
1955 "Caribe Gold," a film about shrimping, was being shot in Key West. The movie starred Ethel Waters, Coley Wallace and Cicely Tyson.
1959Frank Yaccarino was the owner of the Overseas Fruit Market, at 934 Truman Ave.
This is actually Chi Chi's Bar, it moved to the other side of the street (Grinnell) and is now "Don's Place"
1959Frank Yaccarino was the owner of the Overseas Fruit Market, at 934 Truman Ave.
This is actually Chi Chi's Bar, it moved to the other side of the street (Grinnell) and is now "Don's Place"
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
And no review? How are we supposed to know how many Beers it rated????
Bobcat
Founding Member
1975 CBS News reportedly was looking for the body of missing former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared mysteriously on July 29. An informant had told CBS officials that Hoffa's body "was encased in concrete, lying on the ocean floor in 12 feet of water two and half miles off Key West." Nothing was found.
(The Union used to won the Casa Marina)
(The Union used to won the Casa Marina)
h2oMag
Charter Member
They were filming some of that movie down by the fishing harbor when we were racing the 1986 worlds, your right it was a STINKER !!!!!!!!
h2oMag
Charter Member
There was a local Detroit Tv talk show [Lou Gordon] whose guest said Hoffa was dumped in Muscamoot Bay in Lake St Clair. After the show aired that August Sunday night there were many boats in the bay for the rest of that summer looking for Hoffa never finding him. Hoffa is still a topic here in the Detroit area, last fall the the FBI still dug up a farm outside Detroit looking for him..
Bobcat
Founding Member
1976 From a secret report on biological warfare that was made public by the Army, Key West was one of the sites used for simulated biological warfare attacks during the 1950s and '60s. One of the substances used in Key West was "serratia marcescens," which can cause a rare type of pneumonia.
old377guy
Charter Member
Yikes, that's not good
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