Today in Keys History

 

                                          Lodge at Pirate’s Cove Fishing Lodge in 1938. Photo by Romer from Wright Langley Collection.

Pirate’s Cove Fishing Camp on Sugarloaf Key, ca. 1940.

1898 – The U.S. Navy was ordered to blockade the coast of Cuba. About 12 miles south of Sand Key, the USS Nashville took the Spanish steamer Buena Ventura as the first prize. Key Westers went wild over news that war was imminent. Cuban and American flags flew from every house and the San Carlos Institute was covered in red-white-and-blue bunting.

 

 

1943 – The Pirate’s Cove Fishing Lodge, along Bow Channel on Sugarloaf Key, was turned over to the Coast Guard. Work started immediately to convert the buildings into barracks for the Guardsmen who would be protecting Keys waters. 

 

1953 – The crew filming the movie “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef” arrived and took over the Casa Marina Hotel. The movie starred 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 in the film.

 

1959 – It was reported that the Rockefeller Foundation had reached an agreement with the National Park Service to build a resort on Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas. The resort, intended to have its own power and water plants, would generate income from a park that had become a “white elephant” for the NPS.

 

1972 – The old Monroe General Hospital was being converted to offices for use by the expanding Monroe County government.

 

Image: Pirate’s Cove Fishing Camp on Sugarloaf Key, ca. 1940. Stetson Kennedy Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.