KEY WEST: 
RECONNECTED
By Eric H. Hobson, Ph.D.
Pan American Airways (PAA) as a viable business was born at Key West October, 19, 1927, following a much retold last-minute-$145.50-cash-in-hand-if-you-adjust-your-outbound-plans dockside deal that allowed the fledgling airline to claim the U.S. Postal Service’s Foreign Air Mail (FAM) Route #4 to Cuba.
Official mail service to Havana and guaranteed revenue occurred October 28 at Meacham Field[1] on the island’s northeast corner, followed by passenger service January 16.[2] Key West celebrated as PAA positioned U.S.A.’s southern-most city as the door to the Caribbean and South America. (Banning, p. 9-11, 15 & 19)
Not all relationships last, and after eleven months cheers became tears as PAA relocateded to Miami January 9, 1928.[3] The jolt of losing a growing, high-profile company to a northern neighbor was reinforced daily as PAA pilots used Key West as their final reference and banked left to cross the Florida Straits to Cuba, or right on return.
As one, two, three, four years passed, native Key West residents (“Conchs”) remembered scheduled air service: PAA’s seasonal charter and excursion flights did not match their sense of self, and they wanted PAA back full time, certain Key West’s tourist business was a legitimate lure: by 1934 Florida East Coast Railway’s daily “Havana Express” carried 150-400 passengers adding one or two “excursion” trains on weekends during peak season; the Peninsular and Occidental Steamship Company’s “Cuba” dropped 75-200 visitors on its bi-weekly landing. When possible, Conchs urged PAA to reestablish regular service.
Left: Cover of Pan Am brochure, 1928, Cover of Pan American World Airways Miami to Havana Brochure,” Cleared to Land: The Records of the Pan American World Airways, Inc., accessed March 8, 2026, https://scholar.library.miami.edu/digital/exhibits/show/panamerican/item/675.
The Conch-telegraph hummed October 3, 1934 as tugs nosed PAA’s former Dinner Key terminal houseboat[1] alongside the Florida East Coast Railway pier. Five weeks later, the Friday, November 16, Key West Citizen declared air service imminent: Miami-Key West Airways, Inc. (MKWA), just-formed by PAA’s parent company, Pan American Airway Corporation, was opening a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, one-round-trip-per-day schedule (although, starting
December 1 to year’s end the schedule would be Wed., Fri., Sun., then a six-day-per-week service (no Mondays) would begin.
MWKA’s president -- and, possibly, its only employee -- was James Yonge, PAA’s Miami lawyer, and the “paper airline”[1] would rent crew, staff, and equipment from PAA’s Miami operations center.
Pan Am's floating barge at Miami was taken to Key West when Dinner Key Terminal opened for service in 1934. Photo: Florida Memory State Library and Archives of Florida, Reference Collection http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/27179
Captain Robert Fatt flying a PAA Consolidated Commodore inaugurated the route nine days later, Sunday, November 25. Fatt and crew delivered 14 passengers[2] and express freight to a 600 person “rousing welcome,” followed by a VIP luncheon at the Key West Country Club. (“Distinguished Visitors…”) The Key West hoopla barely registered across New York City Chrysler Building’s 58th and 59th floors because the route was a small part of a project to find potential U.S. south and north coast mail routes.
December 1934 passenger numbers were light -- 3.8 seats outbound; 3.4 return – and each leg generated around $27.00 in passenger revenue ($7.50 one-way fare).[3] Then, after strong January-March 1935 numbers, passenger loads ebbed as the tourist season ended and by June 1935 route profitability projections were clear: passenger/express freight loads would not generate route-sustaining income; and without a Miami-Key West U.S. Postal Service contract (held by the Florida East Coast Railroad) year-round Miami-Key West service was not profitable.[4] And so, PAA abandoned the route[5] leaving Conches demoralized.
An “act of God” two months later negated PAA’s prior calculations, and suddenly profits existed -- for a while.
Path of the Labor Day Hurricane, September 3, 1934 near Key West. (Google Maps).
The “Labor Day” hurricane hit the Upper Florida Keys Monday evening, September, 3, 1934, as the most powerful hurricane in Atlantic Basin history.[1] Everything about the storm was unusual: its 185-200 miles-per-hour sustained winds were unprecedented, as was its small eight-mile wide eye; hurricane force winds were contained to a fifty mile wide path; the storm surge lifted seas by 18-20 feet and swept away the town of Islamorada; the storm was abnormally fast, moving northwest at thirty miles-per-hour.[2] (“A Day a …”) The storm killed at least 488 in Monroe County and by the weekend local, state and federal officials fearing disease ordered mass graves and in-place cremations to dispose of decomposing bodies (Staniford, p. 248).
Although the Labor Day hurricane “brushed” Key West, many accounts forget that Monroe County (population 13,335 in 1935), with Key West (population 12,470 in 1935) as county seat, is among Florida’s largest counties extending from Key West northeast above Key Largo and northwest across much of the Everglades.(Wilkinson) The storm decimated the county’s heart, destroyed its railroad artery from the mainland, and erased most of the under-construction Overseas Highway.
The situation was so dire that the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) assumed county management to provide the scale of resources required to “solve the Keys problem,” which was legion: most basic infrastructure across 50 miles was obliterated; hundreds of survivors were homeless and without access to food or water; overland routes were destroyed or existed as isolated, barely passable chunks ending at Plantation Key going south and No Name Key going north, severing the Middle Keys from regular communication and services. Anything going out or in relied on boats or barges entering areas not set up to handle heavy shipping. (Malcolm).
Within two weeks FERA and the U.S. Postal Service, pressured by less-than-positive press coverage of the hurricane’s aftermath, announced that Key West would return to regular mail delivery via “emergency service” contracts designed to “supplement the tri-weekly service supplied by the P. and O. S.S. company from Miami and Tampa.” (“Key West …”) But, to fulfill this promise, they needed an aviation partner and the only proven south Florida partner was PAA. And so, having exited Key West in July, MKWA was back by late September 1935.
Eustice Lake Region readers learned “Key West is connected with the world again, despite the fact that connecting highways and rail facilities were destroyed by the storm … arrangement with the Pan American Airways and the Federal Emergency Relief Corporation has begun operation of an air line (sic) between Miami and Key West.
The new line… Miami-Key West Airways[1], will maintain a tri-weekly schedule carrying mail, express and passengers with regular Pan American Airways ships and crews…on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. South bound planes leaving Miami at 9 a.m. and north bound planes leaving Key West at 4 p. m.” (“Key West…”)
To reduce congestion at Key West’s overburdened shipping piers, MKWA shifted east to the Trumbo yacht basin: Betty Maloney, Meacham Field manager, had the houseboat returned from a site further north where FERA had used the structure since MKWA left town.[2]
The PAA/FERA operating agreement solved MKWA’s existential challenge: consistent income regardless of passenger head counts. The mail contract guaranteed the profit PAA executives demanded and with the railroad out of service (possibly forever) and the Overseas Highway Project losing much of the infrastructure completed in 1934-35, passenger and freight demand would outpace MKWA’s initial experiment, adding more revenue.
Also, PAA brass never ignored the goodwill generated by serving stricken communities as evident in the Pan American Air Ways’ January 1936 issue in which employees learned, among other contributions, they had ensured that staff needed to hold Federal court in Key West got in and out for the year’s first session. (“Eastern Division” p.18).
MKWA’s (MKWA.2) first flight left Miami Thursday, morning September 26, 1935 and, as The Key West Citizen noted in its Friday edition, “was the first round trip to Key West from Miami since July, when service was temporarily abandoned.”[1] Flown by Captain Casper “Cap” Swinson, Chief Pilot, Eastern Division, and co-pilot S.K. Lewis, the flight carried 9 passengers (available seats adjusted each flight based on mail load), mail and express freight. At 4:00 p.m., Swinson and Lewis took off with seven passengers. (“Air System Opens…”)
By January 1936 MKWA flew six flights each week and most carried eleven to fourteen passengers in addition to mail and express packages. MKWA added second round-trips to coincide with major island events, including a February 23-26 window linked to the “La Samana Alegre/Week of Joy Celebration”. Occasionally the airline substituted other aircraft PAA Commodores were flying PAA routes or charters, such as Saturday, March 13 job taking a group to Guatemala, which forced NKWA to use a small monocoupe “equipped for `blind’ flying” to deliver the mail.” (“No Passenger Plane …”)
By mid-March MKWA added excursion flights from Key West out to Fort Jefferson in the Tortugas seventy miles west. The first excursion left 11:00 a.m. March 12 on the Commodore that arrived forty-five minutes earlier and was “the first opportunity of the current season for winter residents to fly to the old fort.” Passengers had about two hours at the fort before returning to Key West around 3:00 p.m. so the aircraft could leave for Miami at 4:00 p.m.
(“Excursion Trip to …”) The run occurred at least weekly and excursioners reported the four-hour trip was a highlight of their Key West visit. (“Plane Leaves for …”)
Even with passenger loads near capacity, PAA watched the “emergency services” mail contract clock tick down to its April 16, 1936 expiration. On April 7, 1936 The Key West Citizen reported that The U.S. Postal Service put the Miami-to-Key West route up for bid in light of Florida East Coast Railway’s inability to execute service, and for a brief window dangled a permanent Miami-Key West airmail route much to Conch’s and PAA’s delight. To enhance its possible bid on an air-mail carveout of the preexisting route, MKWA joined twenty-three domestic airlines in “consolidation recently effected by the Air Express division of the Railroad Express Agency, Inc.”
In announcing that move, he newspaper reminded its readers that, MKWA “has for several months furnished daily service over the 126 miles between Miami and Key West – the only fast transport service since the Miami-Key West causeway was damaged by storm. The only service is by boat running several times a week. Miami-Key West planes are the only seaplanes used in domestic air service, and make the trip in either direction in less than an hour.” (Miami-Key West …”)
That permanent airmail route possibility was squashed by maneuvers in Washington, D.C.. Paul May, The Key West Citizen’s Special Washington Correspondent, informed readers that “The `joker’ which Congress let slip into the bill to extend the air mail service which was passed last session will prevent Key West from getting air mail service this year at least.”
By April 4 smaller Sikorsky S-38 aircraft replaced the Commodores. Conches noticed the change, feared MKWA was soon to leave (and once again deprive Key West of fast, direct access to the mainland), and they voiced their displeasure.
Responding to multiple entreaties, MWKA president Yonge flew to Key West Monday morning, April 13, 1936, “to discuss continuance of plane service between Miami and Key West,” although The Key West Citizen acknowledged that it “expected that the last trip of the plane will be made Thursday … as the mail contract expires at that time.”
The Overseas Transportation Company had received the U.S. Postal Service’s Miami-Key West contract and would begin six-day delivery, starting April 17 using trucks on both sides of the 50-mile Middle Keys transportation gap and “a speed craft capable of 20 miles an hour” between these points. The new “Star” line would deliver all classes of mail and express packages throughout the Keys and eliminate the need to send 2nd-class mail and packages to Key West from Miami via Tampa. However, many Conchs were not optimistic about the change and The Key West Citizen reported “a great diversity of opinion as to whether the new service will be an improvement over the six-day plane service or will prove less effective.” (“Overseas Transportation Co….”)
The concern was legitimate.
As its U. S. Postal Service emergency contract ended at 11:59 p.m., April, 16, 1936, MKWA was again a short-haul passenger/freight airline in a seasonal market. During this second service window (Sept. 1935-Apr. 1936) passenger loads had tripled as options to get to Key West remained few and freight demand was strong; still the route’s future was clear: regardless of Conchs desire for Miami-Key West scheduled service, no mail contract = no route.
The next day’s newspaper announced that starting Wednesday, April 15, the Miami to Key West route was reverting to a three-day-per-week (Tues, Thurs. & Sat.) schedule to the end of the month when service would cease.
At 1 a.m. Thursday, April 30, 1936 -- the day MKWA was to abandon its route and existence -- a fire on the bridge thirty-two miles above Key West connecting Big Pine Key and No Name Key burned 1,200 feet of the one-half-mile span. The loss severed Key West’s automobile route from the ferry landing on No Name Key’s north side and isolated Key West once again. Additionally, the loss created hurdles for the Overseas Transportation Company to meet its just-obtained contractual obligations with the U.S. Postal Service, after all, “the mail must go through.”
Conchs saw an obvious stop-gap solution: reestablish mail delivery by airplane. Urged by Mayor William Malone, FERA Director Stone, and other important Conchs, MKWA president Yonge arrived Wednesday May 6 to discuss if and how to extend the route’s life. On Thursday, The Key West Citizen reported “long conferences yesterday relative to three times per week service.” (“Confer About Plane Service” p.1) By Saturday, May 9, the newspaper reported that Miam-Key West Airways would reinstate service the next Tuesday, May 12 with a Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday schedule that was set “to continue until bridge between Big Pine Key and No Name Key is rebuilt” (“Complete Arrangements for…”).[1] And so, another disaster created a third MKWA service period.
Key West, FL: Arrival of plane at Airport, Key West Miami Airways Base. 2-14-37. (Gleason Romer photo, Helen Muir Florida Collection. Special Collections and Archives. Miami-Dade Public Library System).
Scheduled air service was back and much welcomed, but many Conchs’ wondered, “For how long?” On May 26, 1936 The Key West Citizen provided an update from Mayor Malone who shared a telegram from Governor Schultz stating “Continuation of the present air service between Miami and Key West for an indefinite period is assured,” also adding, “The temporary service now in operation was to be operated for only a short period, it is understood, as it was underwritten for a nominal sum with the understanding that, when the bridge between Big Pine Key and No Name Key was restored, service would cease.” (“Miami-Key West Service ..”)
Other official statements were less assuring. Mr. J.R. Boyd, chief clerk, railway division, U.S. postal District 5, Jacksonville told concerned Conch, W.R. Porter, “It is the desire of the department to furnish your city and community with the best possible service, but of
course the value of service performed must be commensurate with the cost of the same.” The Postal Service’s budget-based stance did not sit well in Key West, especially when reiterated by its local postmaster who stated, “the postoffice department has no funds available for this continued air service.” Mr. Porter responded that a “no funds” argument “is no reasonable excuse. Whatever funds are necessary should and must be provided. Our isolation is due to an act of Almighty God … and now in our hour of need there should be no quibbling over a few thousand dollars to give (Key West) a necessary and adequate mail service until such time as it can obtain direct and fast highway transportation to the mainland.” (“Protests Registered Against…”)
MKWA’s third service phase ran to Winter 1937 tourist season’s end as PAA, working with FERA, finalized its exit. FERA put the terminal barge up for sale at the end of February, having “advised the Pan American company of the proposed sale of the property” (“Receive Bids on...”)
The end of air service to Key West became real mid-March 1937. The Key West Citizen reported that the PAA landing barge was sold to S. J. Groves and Sons Construction Co. and the new owner expected to remove it on or before Tuesday, March 24. Working from that information, airport manager, Betty Maloney, had workers build stairs to the landing float from the pier so on-going service would not be affected after the houseboat was removed and she had ordered material for an awning for the stairs when she learned that no more MKWA flying boats would arrive: no one told her that not only had the terminal barge been sold, but so too had the landing float (“Arrange for …). Without these physical assets, a newspaper headline stated the obvious: “No Facilities Are Left for Plane Landing.” (“No Facilities…”)
Both structures were towed away Friday, April 2 1937 and the newspaper offered a page-one eulogy: “This morning at 8 o’clock a power boat took in tow the barge which has been used as a landing place and office of The Key West-Miami, Inc., (sic) for about one and a half years, since the Key West-Miami service was started following the hurricane of September 3, 1935.”[1] (Landing Barge and …”) Attentive conches watching the barge leave probably saw scheduled air service to the mainland trailing in its wake.
Footnotes
[1] Referred to locally at the time as “Pan American Field,” it now hosts Key West International Airport.
[2] For definitive historical detail, see: “Pan Am’s Big Day” Pan Am Historical Foundation; https://www.panam.org/take-off/backstory-oct-19-1927
[3] If unpopular, the relocation made sense: the shift added 160 miles to it’s signature air-mail route (guaranteeing increased mail cartage fees); Miami sat at the nexus of existing north-south airmail and railroad lines; the growing city offered employees chances to establish roots; and, Miami meet PAA service requests.
[4] The barge was well-traveled. Constructed in 1928 in Havana for New York Rio Buenos Aires Airways (NYRBA), it served at NYRBA’s Biscayne Bay/Dinner Key, FL base. In September 1930, PAA absorbed NYRBA, and it served as PAA’s passenger terminal until the iconic Art Deco Dinner Key terminal opened in April1934.
[5] A “paper airline” is a corporate aviation entity that owns none of the equipment or personnel to carry out its advertised services; rather, it rents/leases all its physical needs from other carriers.
[6] MKWA flew two aircraft models (Sikorsky S-38 & Consolidated Commodore) with their standard passenger configurations (8 & 22) cut to 4 & 14 to accommodate the more lucrative express freight.
[7] This hoopla barely registered in PAA’s New York City Chrysler Building’s 58th and 59th floor offices because the route was part of a project to find potential U.S. coastal mail routes.
[8] Passenger loads are calculated using daily reports in the The Key West Citizen when available.
[9] More profitable uses were being identified for the two aircraft models used on the route, including scrapping & selling some of the fleet’s oldest Sikorsky S-38s, and sending two S-38s and two Consolidated Commodores to China. Either model generated more income per hour when used on charter flights: S-38 @ $100/hr. & Commodore @ $150/hr., minimum 3 hour contract (“Time Tables …”)
[10] The author cannot establish an exact service end date although sources indicate end of June or early July, 1935.
[11] That distinction was challenged October 2025 by hurricane Melissa; initial data shows it matched the Labor Day storm in wind speed and barometric pressure readings.
[12] This combination has led some meteorological historians to describe the Labor Day hurricane as a 20 mile wide F5 tornado (the most powerful category for a tornado).
[13] Although the Labor Day hurricane “brushed” Key West, accounts forget that Monroe County (population 13,335 in 1935) -- Key West (population 12,470 in 1935) as county seat -- is among Florida’s largest counties, extending Key West northeast above Key Largo and northwest across much of the Everglades.
[14] The same name as before, although the entity is most likely a new business created to fit the parameters of the closed-ended, “emergency services” federal government contract.
[15] The well-equipped “floating property” was too valuable during a time of need for anything seaworthy to idle and it is likely that PAA sold the barge to FERA as it exited the MKWA route June/July 1935.
[16] PAA never ignored goodwill generated by serving stricken communities. Pan American Air Ways’ (January 1936) informed employees that they had ensured staff needed to hold Federal court in Key West got to 1936’s first session.
[17] It is not clear what agreements PAA/MKWA and FERA reached.
[18] Part of the agreement was that these flights would use Consolidated Commodore aircraft rather than the small, Sikorsky S-38s that had flown the route during its final weeks in April.
[19] The Overseas Highway finally opened in March 1938.
Works Cited
“Air System Opens Line to Key West.” n/d; n/s. “Pan American Special Flight: babies born aboard plane.” University of Miami Richter Library Special Collections.
“Arrange for Landing of Passengers.” Key West Citizen (Mar. 23, 1937), p. 1.
Banning, Gene. Airlines of Pan American since 1927. McLean, Virginia: Paladwr Press, 2001.
“Complete Arrangements for Passenger Plane Service” Key West Citizen (May 9, 1936), p. 1.
“Confer About Plane Service.” Key West Citizen (May 7, 1936), p. 1.
Davies, R.E.G. Airlines of the United States since 1914. London: Putnam, 1972.
“Distinguished Visitors Arriving Sunday on Plane Inaugurating Air Service Given Rousing Welcome.” Key West Citizen (Nov. 26, 1934), p. 1.
“Eastern Division.” Pan American Air Ways, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan. 1936), p. 18.
“Excursion Trip to Tortugas on Plane Planned.” Key West Citizen (March 7, 1936), p. 1.
“James Younge (sic) Arrives Here.” Key West Citizen (Mar. 23, 1937), p. 1.
“Key West Joined to Coast Via Air.” Eustis Lake Region (Oct. 11, 1935), p. 1.
“Landing Barge and Float Taken Away This Morning.” Key West Citizen (Apr. 2, 1937), p. 1.
Malcolm, Corey, Ph.D. Personal Interview, Oct. 15, 2025.
May, Paul. “Clause in Bill Will Prevent Key West From Getting Direct Air Mail Service This Year.” Key West Citizen (Apr. 6, 1936), p.1.
Miami Herald Archive. “The day a killer hurricane wiped out parts of the Florida Keys, and what happened next.” Miami Herald (August 31, 2020): https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article245376200.html, accessed October 31, 2025.
“Miami-Key West Air Service Now Arranged.” Key West Citizen (Nov. 16, 1934), p. 1.
“Miami-Key West Air Service Will Continue Indefinitely.” Key West Citizen (May 26, 1936), p. 1.
“No Passenger Plane Saturday.” Key West Citizen (March 12, 1936), p. 1.
“Overseas Transportation Co. Given Control for Daily Mail Service to Key West.” Key West Citizen (April 13, 1936), p. 1.
“Pan American Airways to Start Mail Plane Service to Key West Beginning This Coming Thursday.” Key West Citizen, (Monday, 23 September 1935), p. 1.
“Pan American Special Flight: babies born aboard plane.” University of Miami Richter Library Special Collections.
“Plane Leaves for Tortugas.” Key West Citizen, (March 24, 1936), p.1.
“Plane Service is Discussed.” Key West Citizen, (Monday, 13 April 1936), p. 1.
“Plane Service to be Cut to Thrice Weekly on April 15.” Key West Citizen, (Tuesday, 14 April 1937), p. 1.
“Protests Registered Against Establishing Star Line Mail Route Between Miami and Key West.” The Key West Citizen (Mar. 20, 1936). P. 1&4.
“Receive Bids on Airplane Barge.” Key West Citizen (March 16, 1937), p. 1.
Standiford, Les. Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean. New York: Crown Publishers, 2002.
Wilkinson, Jerry. “The Natural History Room, Hurricane Case, The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane Shelf, Page 2,” Keys Historeum, Historical Preservation Society of the Upper Keys: https://www.keyshistory.org/shelf1935hurrpage2.html (Accessed 8 November 2025).
