This Week In Toledo History Week of 7/12/2021

By: 
Lou Hebert

This week in Toledo history
July 11
1917 - Toledo Police arrest suspected high-level German spy Baron Einrich Rolph Gersdorff at the Boody House after getting tip from Toledo’s German community. Police and Secret Service are investigating his frequent travels to the Willys Overland car plant.
1922 - Gale force winds of up to 72 MPH blast the city of Toledo, causing more than $150,000 in damage to trees and homes.
1927 - The 135-foot wooden freighter, the “Clarence Lebeau,” burns in Maumee River.
1934 - Numerous German-American groups in Toledo file complaints about an anti-Hitler movie, “Reign of Terror,” showing at the Pantheon Theater in Toledo. Two days later the Ohio Governor bans the movie in Ohio.
1939 - Interurban passenger service from Toledo to outlying communities is halted.
1943 - Lt. Robert Craig of Sylvania is killed in combat in Italy. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor.
2000 - Four-alarm blaze destroys the Vistula Heritage Apartments at Erie and Locust.

July 12
1844 - George Thompson hanged in Fremont for the murder of 18-year-old Catherine Hamler who had refused his marriage proposal.
1892 - The grand Victory Hotel opens for guests on South Bass Island.
1904 - Popular reform Mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones dies of a heart attack in Toledo. Businesses close and body lies in state as city mourns the passing of the mayor.
1893 - Fire destroys several blocks of homes and businesses in Wood County town of Luckey.
1907 - Thirty-two men are convicted in Toledo for violation of anti-trust laws and get six months in jail.
1927 - Freight train hits Interurban passenger trolley at the Dorr Street terminal in Toledo. Three people killed and nine are injured.
1986 - Very strong magnitude-4.5 earthquake shakes much of Northwest Ohio.

July 13
1833 - First property transaction in Toledo as John Baldwin buys a lot in the new community of Vistula for $25 at Monroe and Summit Streets.
1897 - Five waterspouts witnessed near South Bass Island.
1905 - The largest roller rink in Ohio is now nearing completion at Ashland and Bancroft, measuring 175 feet by 85 feet.
1911 - Seven Toledo residents are feared to be among those people trapped by raging forest fires in Michigan that have wiped out several communities in the region of the Au Sable River.
1926 - The oldest man ever to be put in jail by Toledo Police is arrested for the theft of a chicken from a market on Cherry Street. The 96-year-old man, James Hughes, says that at least in prison, he’ll get regular meals.
1931 - A & P Stores in Toledo advertise 7 -cent-a-loaf bread, 5-cent bags of brown sugar and six ears of sweet corn for 25 cents.

July 14
1904 - Double execution is held in Columbus for two brothers from Lucas County, Albert and Benjamin Wade, convicted in the 1900 robbery and murder of Kate Sullivan in rural western Lucas County. Minutes before they were electrocuted, both maintained their innocence. Ben Wade is reported to have said just before the switch was pulled, "Now boys, don’t burn me up. I want to be a respectable looking corpse.”
1936 - Hottest day on record in Northwest Ohio. Toledo reports 105 degrees. Bowling Green records 110 degrees. Some highways buckle under heat stress. People are sleeping on their lawns to escape the oppressive heat.
1942 - The Toledo Blade reports its new “photo-sound” machine that will allow them to get news photos from around the world within hours after an event occurs.
1951 - At the Park Theater at Sylvania and Lewis, the movie “Bedtime for Bonzo,” starring Ronald Reagan, is shown.
1955 - One of the grandest and most elegant homes ever built in Toledo, at 103 years of age, is torn down at Washington and 11th Streets to make way for a used car lot.
1971 - A 19-year-old West Toledo woman reports to police that she had been having sex with dozens of Toledo Police officers at the Willys Park Pool after hours. Her story leads to a major investigation and suspension of numerous officers and dismissals of others.
1980 - Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan visits Toledo prior to start of GOP Convention in Detroit.

July 15
1849 - Toledo's first cholera epidemic breaks out. Over the next two weeks more than 100 people would die including the City Marshal and Postmaster.
1892 - Six men on Toledo City Council are convicted of soliciting and taking bribes from area businesses. They are sentenced to $250 in fines.
1903 - Eight Toledo boys now reported to have died from tetanus and lockjaw infections as a result of toy pistol and fireworks accidents over the Fourth of July.
1935 - In the wake of the 1934 Auto-lite strike, the famed “Toledo Plan” is implemented as a way for business and industry to settle labor disputes.
1946 - It’s announced that Toledo movie actress and popular World War II pin-up girl Dusty Anderson will marry Warner Brothers director Jean Negulesco. She soon retires from acting.
1969 - The Princess Theater, one of the oldest in downtown Toledo, closes, leaving the Valentine and the Pantheon Theaters as the only remaining movie houses in downtown Toledo.
1973 - County Executive Ned Skeldon makes his long-promised swim across Maumee River after reaching goal of substantial cleanup of the river. Hundreds turn out to watch him swim from Walbridge Park to Rossford.
1983 - The first X-J Jeep Cherokee rolls off assembly line at Jeep Parkway plant.

July 16
1843 - The last of the Wyandot Indians leave their Upper Sandusky native tribal lands on an eventual “trail of tears” to new reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma.
1896 - Toledo Mud Hens are born. Team plays first game as “Mudhens” at Bay View Park outside of the city limits so they could play on Sundays. The team earns its nickname because BayView Park was a marshy area populated by "American Coots", often called Mudhens.
1936 - Dedication concert at the new Toledo Zoo amphitheater is held with the Toledo Civic Symphony, the forerunner to the Toledo Symphony. Toledo Police Inspector Charles Roth was the conductor.
1940 - Fire sweeps through an upper floor attic of St. Vincent’s Hospital, forcing the evacuation of 142 patients. No injuries to patients reported, but two Toledo firemen were overcome by smoke while battling the blaze.
1959 - Eight U.S. Navy ships and thousands of sailors and Marines arrive in Toledo as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway opening celebrations and festivities.
1972 - Tigers pitcher Joe Niekro pitches a seven-inning no-hitter for the Toledo Mud Hens at the team’s home ballpark in Maumee.
1972 - Notorious prohibition mobster, killer and underworld character, Jacob “Firetop” Sulkin dies at his home in Toledo at age of 80.

July 17
1835 - Angry mob of Michiganders storm Toledo home of Ben Stickney to arrest his son “Two Stickney” in one of the first skirmishes of Ohio-Michigan War.
1884 - First birth reported at what would later become Riverside Hospital. It was a boy.
1932 - Five volunteer firemen from Adams Township are killed and 10 others injured when their speeding fire truck is forced off Reynolds Road near Hill. The truck went into a deep ditch and rolled three times. Killed in the crash were Archie Dennis, Orville Reynolds and Arthur Northup. Two other firemen die a day later from their injuries.. The driver of the car that forced them off the road fled the scene.
1934 - A “human wheelbarrow” of two Toledoans, Donald Taylor and William Robb, set out from New York City on the first ever cross-country trip of a “human wheelbarrow.”

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