Harry Davis Jr., Key Largo’s first Black fire chief, was a true Conch who was born in 1944 on his father’s pistol range, in the area that is now called Port Largo. Due to Monroe County’s segregation laws at the time, Davis Jr. was not allowed to attend Coral Shores High School. So he took a Greyhound bus all the way to Homestead in order to get his education.
Key Largo fire commissioner Frank Conklin told Keys Weekly that when Coral Shores High School caught fire in 1968, Davis Jr. didn’t let that negative history bother him. As a member of the all-volunteer Key Largo Fire Rescue, he worked all night long to help contain the flames. He never left his post in order to save the school that he was not allowed to attend.
“He was a very humble man,” Conklin said.
Decades after his passing, Davis’ impact is still felt by the community. To honor the fire chief’s contributions to both the fire district and the community, Conklin has created a display at the Key Largo Volunteer Fire Rescue Museum.
And when a recent Facebook post to spotlight Davis for Black History Month was published by Florida Keys History & Discovery Center, multiple commenters wrote of their warm memories.
“One of the nicest guys you would ever meet, honest, hard working, helpful to anyone needing it,” said one.
“Harry was an Angel. He helped me move to Largo Gardens years ago. My son dated his daughter Kim & his wife (Betty) was a hoot!” said another.
Davis’ friends, family and colleagues often mention the Coral Shores High School anecdote to describe the type of man that he was. His son Randy Davis said that Coral Shores’ prejudice was just one of the slights that his father experienced.
“That’s not even the worst,” Randy said, chuckling. “I could tell you stories. But my father never let that hold him back. He was a great fireman, great fire chief, great family man. He raised four children in Key Largo and made sure we all graduated and went to work. He made sure we did the right thing.”
Davis’ father, Harry Davis Sr., moved to the Keys from Andros, Bahamas, in 1895. In addition to building that aforementioned pistol range in Port Largo, Harry Sr. and his wife, Florence — along with extended family — bought multiple parcels of land in the area, on which they farmed pineapples, Key limes and mangoes.
As a child, Harry Jr. helped with the farming and cleared land at 50 cents an hour to pave the way for the Hibiscus Park development as well as what would become John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.
Eventually, he started cleaning the bays of the Key Largo fire house after it was built in 1955, and his duties as a volunteer built up over the years, gradually becoming fire chief in 1971 in addition to running his own successful business that serviced fire extinguishers up and down the Keys.
A tall, soft-spoken man (Randy called him a “gentle giant”), Davis was known for his sense of humor and once joked in a 1974 Miami Herald article: “When the fire sees me, it heads the other way.”
In the same article, written by John Dorschner, he was described as “a big, friendly man, given to backslapping and honking his horn at all the people he knows — and they are many.”
But there is a flaw in this tale: He died too soon. On Sept. 18, 1989, he passed away at age 45 of a stroke. And in a tragic twist of fate, his beloved wife, Betty, died a few years later in a house fire in Georgia.
Nonetheless, Davis’ daughter Kimberly said she and her family are moved that the Keys refuse to forget their father’s long-lasting stamp on the community.
“It is beyond overwhelming,” she said. “We thank god that Frank is keeping his memories alive.”
There’s one more memory that Kimberly would like us to know about.
“My father went to Key West every Thursday,” she said. “One day he was driving and just found a 2-year-old in the middle of U.S 1. He stopped to pick up the baby, and he looked and found out it had wandered from a trailer park on U.S. 1. The mother was asleep in the house. That’s the type of person he was. So many amazing stories. He was always involved. And he always cared.”
