This Week in Toledo History 3/15/2021

March 14
1886 - Linseed Oil Company mills in Toledo are destroyed by fire.

1911- It is estimated by city officials that Toledo has about 160,000 shade trees along city streets. Half of them are American white elm trees. A planting of a thousand more trees will happen on Arbor Day by Toledo school children.

1933 - Heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey comes to Toledo and visits a welfare house for homeless and jobless men. Dempsey tells them not to give up hope and that "sun will shine sooner or later".

1966 - Southeast Michigan residents near Toledo begin seeing strange lights and reports of UFO's from Ann Arbor to Monroe. A Monroe County sheriff's deputy says from the roof of the county office building he could see bright spots of light with a greenish glow that began to move in a swaying motion.

March 15
1894 -The Wood County Courthouse foundation is laid.

1918 - As war heats up against Germany in Europe, Toledo troops are now in the trenches, all German natives living in Toledo are forced to surrender their guns to federal marshals, a Toledo man, Homer Kunz, has been named to help the United State develop poison gases to be used against the Germans.

1943 - Assistant Trilby Fire Chief Ralph Pelton rescues two children from a burning house on Glenn Street. Later awarded a Carnegie Hero Medal for his bravery.

1946 - A tractor trailer rig strikes a 120 foot bridge over Bean Creek in Fulton County causing it to collapse.

1964 - Beatles appear on closed circuit TV at the Rivoli Theater in downtown Toledo as thousands of screaming young fans pack the seats.

March 16
1910 - Automobile racing pioneer and Toledo resident, Barney Oldfield, sets a world speed record of 131.7 mph hours at Daytona.

1925 - Point Place officials make decision to change scores of street names to a numbered system of streets.

1927 - The "phantom clubber" strikes again in Toledo. Headline news reports say this mysterious menace, who has killed three women so far, has attempted yet another assault. This time on Orchard Street against the young Hazel Spencer, but her dog "Bozo" scared the phantom away.

1943 - Jacob Rinebold, Toledo's last Civil War Veteran dies at the age of 92. He had joined the Union Army at the age of 14 as a runaway. He saw lots of battle action and was wounded once. He lived at 713 Walbridge Street in South Toledo.

March 17
1842 - Wyandot Indians of Northwest Ohio sign treaty to surrender their native lands and leave Ohio to live on reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma.

1855 - Toledo city officials form a "chain gang" to put prisoners to work on various projects in the city.

1936 - Police and school leaders in Toledo express outrage over reports that 50 high school students took part in a liquor fueled “petty party" and orgy.

1995 - The well-known "Big Boy" restaurant statue is stolen from its Secor Road location near Westgate. It is held hostage by vandals and later found "dismembered". The story gathered attention around the nation.

March 18

1907 - The old Exchange Hotel in Perrysburg is destroyed in a fast-moving blaze. This is the hotel where President William Henry Harrison stayed one night.

1930 - A report in the Toledo News Bee says a national statistics survey of high schools across the country reveals that 90 percent of all Woodward School students have freckles. One of the highest averages in the country.

1931 - Fishing season begins as nine commercial fishing boats from Toledo head out into the waters of the lake to begin harvesting catches of perch and walleye.

1949 - Recovered masterpiece paintings that had been stolen by the Nazi's during World War Two are brought to the Toledo Museum of Art for the last stop on a nationwide tour. The $50 million worth of paintings had been discovered and rescued by American troops from a salt mine in Poland. One of the men in that group of so called "Monument's Men" was Otto Wittman, Toledo's Art Museum Director.

March 19
1934 - New York Central railroad offering roundtrip fares from Toledo to Chicago for just $4.00.

1948 - A severe windstorm hits the region and causes heavy damage. Two altar boys are killed when a church collapses in Deshler in Wood County.

1957 - The Ash-Consaul Street bridge over the Maumee is reduced to memory when dynamite charges bring down the steel structure. Spectators lined the riverbanks to watch the explosions. The bridge was being removed after the opening of the new Craig Memorial Bridge over the river.

March 20
1874 – Toledo’s most famous pioneer, Peter Navarre dies at the age of 89 in a hotel room at Front and Main Street. Navarre was an early frontiersman, scout, trapper, and soldier.

1905 - It's reported that fights among the chorus girls are breaking out at the Empire Burlesque Theater over the popularity of singer Maude O'Dell who is becoming quite popular with the fans.

1943 - Ceremonies are held at the Toledo Shipyards for the laying of the keel of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw. It would be launched the following year and serve for over 60 years on the Great Lakes.

1993 - Owens Technical College (now Owens Community College) wins Division II national basketball championship.