This Week In Toledo History

March 19
1905 - Fights are breaking out among the chorus girls at the Empire Burlesque in Toledo over the popularity of Maude O'Dell, who some girls say is becoming much too popular.
1915 - Five largest bakers in Toledo indicted for violation of anti-trust laws, accused of fixing the wholesale price of bread in the city.
1952 - Toledoan Carl “Bill Bailey” Hankenhof, also known as the man who made the Ukulele famous in America, dies on his yacht in Florida at the age of 66. Hankenhof spent many years as a circus performer and then took up the Ukulele and made it famous in the 1920s with numerous hit songs.
1957 - A dynamite demolition reduces the Ash-Consaul Street Bridge over the Maumee River to rubble as spectators look on.

March 20
1874 - Peter Navarre, early frontiersman, pioneer of Toledo and hero of war of 1812, dies at age 89. Navarre lived his final months in an east Toledo hotel.
1919 - A major blaze roars through the C.E. Powers Elevator at Genoa, causing some $50,000 in damage.
1922 - Failing to report to local hospitals for “treatment” of social diseases, 68 Toledo women are arrested and sent to the Womens' detention home.
1943 - Ceremonies are held in East Toledo as the keel is laid for the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw at Toledo Shipbuilding yards. It would become the largest cutter on the Great Lakes in its 60 years of operation.
1993 - Owens Technical College wins Division II national basketball championship.

March 21
1914 - Toledo Police show off their new police vehicle. It's both a car and ambulance. It can travel at speeds of more than 50 mph.
1920 - Strict enforcement underway of a ban on public dances on Sundays in Toledo.
1931- Sinclair Lewis, Nobel prize winning author for literature appears in Toledo at the Valentine Theater but tells reporters he'd rather be home slopping his hogs on his farm in Vermont.
1932 - Dell Hair, Toledo’s well-known poet-cop, dies at the age of 60. He penned several poetry books while serving as a Toledo policeman. Hair lived an adventure filled life, and spent years as an Indian fighter in the West.
1959 - The new Presque Isle cargo facility is nearly ready to accept cargo at the recently built terminal and docks.
1973 - Toledo Municipal Court finds manager of Westwood Theater guilty of obscenity for the showing of “Deep Throat.

March 22
1911 - Powder house at the American Gypsum quarry at Port Clinton blows up. Six rail cars are destroyed and two workmen are injured.
1933 - The end of prohibition is drawing near. Sale of 3.2 beer is approved. Ralph A. Werneke writes in The Blade that you'll be "able to feel a warm pleasant glow but you won't be able to drink enough of it to get drunk."
1936 -Toledo police tell reporters that the city has become a haven for gangsters and underworld characters and they promise a crackdown.
1973 - Singer John Denver sets off firestorm of criticism in Toledo when he sings the derogatory parody ballad "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" on the Tonight Show.
1979 - Marathon Bowling Center on Sylvania Avenue in West Toledo is destroyed by powerful explosion and blaze.

March 23
1888 - Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite of Maumee dies at his Washington home of pneumonia.
1896 - First oil discovered in Lucas County in Eastside area known as Momineetown.
1900 - Toledo public school teachers meet and vote overwhelmingly against establishing a pension system. Those opposed to the teachers pension claim it isn't fair for younger teachers.
1906 - Catholic Societies in Toledo petition Mayor Brand Whitlock to close the parks earlier and to add more lighting in the evening because “too much evil" occurs in the parks after dark attracting unsavory and vulgar elements.
1911 - A body of a man, believed to be an oil well driller from Cygnet, is found in Swan Creek. Police say the man had rolls of cash wrapped around both ankles, totaling $180. They think he was the victim of thugs.
1927 - George Ketcham assembles 200 of the world’s best paintings of horses to be displayed in lobby of his Valentine Theater.

March 24
1899 - Brothers John and Paul Zeltner kill a lawyer in a Hoytville, Ohio courtroom over a $100 debt. They flee the courthouse and hold off a citizen’s posse and militia for a day.
1919 - Toledo soldiers arrive back on U.S. soil, returning from the European front of World War I. They arrive at Newport News, Virginia aboard the battleship Vermont. A Toledo welcoming party is there to greet them.
1924 - Toledo police arrest an aging and legless man who had come to town from Los Angeles, pulled in a little red wagon by two goats. His name was "Knuckles." He sold cigars and trinkets to make a living. Police arrest him, putting him and his goats in jail. Unknown as to why.
1975 - Toledo's so called "Bar Wars" continue. A night spot called the "Why Not Club" on South Erie Street is burned in an arson set blaze. It was the latest fire in a string of bar fires allegedly set by rival "mob" groups.
1984 - The BGSU Hockey team wins the National Hockey Championship at Lake Placid New York defeating Minnesota-Duluth. 5-4 in 3 periods and 4 overtimes.

March 25
1836 - Bank of Manhattan formed and opens for business in what is now North Toledo.
1913 - Nineteen people die in Tiffin when the Sandusky River reached record flood levels, causing worst disaster in that town’s history.
1923 - News Bee says Toledoans are getting baby alligators from family and friends who have been vacationing in Florida.
1931 - Hollywood actress June MacCloy, a 21-year-old Toledo native and Scott High School graduate, files for divorce from her second husband in Hollywood.
1934 - Future feminist and writer, Gloria Steinem is born in Toledo. She graduates from Waite High School and goes on to become a writer and famous advocate for women's rights.