State of Emergency : Key West in the Great Depression

On July 1, 1934, elected representatives of the Key West City Council and the Monroe County Board of Commissioners drew up two separate resolutions that said the same thing. The island city, the ordinances declared, was more than $5,000,000 in bonded debt, with at least eighty percent of its inhabitants on the welfare rolls. City services were reduced to almost a non-existent level as employees went without pay for weeks at a time. Furthermore, the lack of a viable industry to employ local residents, coupled with a greatly decreased island tax base, foretold a dire economic future for the city