1843 – The city of Tallahassee suffered a devastating fire which destroyed most of the downtown businesses on this date. The fire started in the Washington Hall boarding house and quickly spread to the mostly wood-frame buildings of downtown. The estimated damage was placed at $500,000 and the city quickly passed an ordinance that mandated only “fireproof” brick buildings be erected in their place. Miraculously, no one was killed in the fire.
1880 – Florida’s first telephone exchange opened on this date in Jacksonville. Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company opened with 34 subscribers. Popularity for the new device slowly grew and by 1897 the first long distance line from Jacksonville to Georgia was established at a rate of 85 cents for three minutes. Soon Southern Bell bought out most of the small regional lines in Florida and by 1955 they had established over 1 million lines statewide.
1805 - Jean Pierre Augustin Marcellin Verot, the first bishop of St. Augustine was born in Le Puy France on this date. Verot first came to the United States in 1830 and later to Florida in the years leading up to the Civil War. He became known as the “Rebel Bishop” for his support of the secessionist movement, although he opposed slavery. In 1867 Verot set up a school for the children of freed slaves in St. Augustine which operated into the 20th century by the Sisters of St. Joseph, also from Le Puy.
1915 – The first sheriff of St. Lucie County, Daniel Stephen Carlton was shot and killed in downtown Fort Pierce on this date. Sheriff Carlton was involved in a pistol duel with a night marshal by the name of James M. Disney. The exact circumstances surrounding the duel remain unknown, with some claiming longstanding personal grievances between the men. Disney was sentenced to five years in prison, serving only two and a half years.
1929 – The first mail delivered by Pan American World Airways from Miami to Nicaragua left Biscayne Bay on this date. Pan Am, as it was more commonly known, began delivering U.S. international mail to Havana Cuba from Key West in 1927 and later Miami before securing mail delivery contracts for all of Central and South America. In the coming decades Pan Am became one of the largest commercial airmail and passenger airlines in the world with planes traveling to every continent but Antarctica by 1968. Miami remained a hub for Pan Am service until the early 1990s.
1913 - Henry Morrison Flagler, founder of the Standard Oil Company and the Florida East Coast Railroad and Hotel Company died at his home in West Palm Beach at the age of 83 on this date. Flagler single-handedly accelerated and facilitated the development of Florida with the construction of the FEC railway and an elaborate hotel system along Florida’s coast designed to bring the wealthiest visitors to Florida. One year earlier Flagler witnessed the completion of his Overseas Railway connecting Miami with Key West via a series of bridges, an incredible engineering feat even today.
1887 – DeSoto County, Florida’s 42nd county was created by the Florida legislature on this date. It was named for Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto who landed in present-day Tampa Bay in 1539 and embarked on an extensive journey throughout the southeastern United States until his death on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1542. The earliest settlement in DeSoto County was Fort Ogden built in 1841 during the Second Seminole War, and a small community grew around the original fort site.
1955 - Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder and first president of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, died on this date. Ms. Bethune, who was born to former slave parents on July 10, 1875, began her own school on October 3, 1904, with a capital of only $1.50. Bethune’s career in education began when she received a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary in North Carolina. A second scholarship provided the means for her to attend the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. After teaching eight years at schools in Augusta, Georgia, and Palatka, Florida, she opened her own school.
1913 – Domingo Rosillo del Toro, a Cuban Armed Forces pilot, flew a Blériot Type XI monoplane from Key West to Havana on this date, the first person to accomplish the international flight. He attempted the flight in order to win a $10,000 prize offered by the Cuban government. The flight took over two hours in the small open-cockpit plane across the Florida Straits, a route that would later become heavily traversed by tourists traveling by air to and from Cuba in the early half of the 20th century.
1986 – West German snake researcher Juergen Herger began a 100-day experiment living with poisonous snakes at a zoo near Pensacola on this date. Juergen broke the world record by 10 days while sleeping in a glass room with 28 snakes including cobras, vipers and rattlesnakes, as well as some non-venomous species. The goal of his research was to determine how different snake species interacted with each other. During the 100 days, Juergen slept only two hours at a time because one cobra tended to curl up with him whenever he would lie down and he feared being bitten.