This Week In Toledo History Week of 8/30/2021

Aug. 29 – Sept. 4
Aug. 29
1870 - Toledo’s population growing. Now listed at 31,600.
1888 - Hoytville’s main business district is leveled by stubborn week-long blaze.
1914 - Toledo’s first woman food inspector, Mrs. Elizabeth Schauss, institutes new rules for food handlers in restaurants in the city, including hair nets for female workers.
1924 - Seven members of the Cyrus Updegraff family of Wood County are killed when their car is hit by a train on South Boundary Street in Perrysburg.
1929 - A.M. Barlow of North Baltimore is oldest postal worker in the United States, celebrating his 87th birthday as postmaster in the Wood County community.
1937- Mrs. Bernice Whalen, 38, of Fredonia Street in Toledo gets tired of people stealing her watermelons from the garden, so she lies in wait with a shotgun and opens fire on two would-be melon thieves. They flee into the night, one of them may have been shot with buckshot.
1947 - Eleven people injured in train crash at Union Station in Toledo when a B&O passenger train slams into an engine on a side-track.
1960 - Howard Johnson locations in Toledo offer a $1 all-you-can-eat Lake Erie perch dinner.

Aug. 30
1900 - Three East Toledo teen boys are in trouble with the law for stealing watermelons from a Pennsylvania railroad freight car and selling them around the neighborhood.
1902 - A young Toledo Lothario and house painter known as "Steeple Jack", Joe LaBarge, was chased down and killed by a group of men in Monroe, Michigan. Labarge is reported to have been seeing his mistress when someone saw him in her house and thought he was raping her. A mob of vigilantes began chasing him to the porch a nearby house where he was shot dead by members of the mob.
1903 - State of Ohio sets new policy that all high school students must study spelling.
1934 - Pearson Park is dedicated, in honor of Blade reporter and East Side booster George Pearson.
1972 - Toledo gets a double dose of bad news when it is announced that Buckeye Beer will close its historic brewery in North Toledo after more than 130 years in operation.
On the same day, it is revealed that the Tiedtke's, opened since 1894 store announces it will be closing its doors forever in just three days.

Aug. 31
1878 - Fire destroys the huge Put-in-Bay House Hotel and several other buildings on South Bass Island.
1901 - Large tomato canning plant opens at Bowling Green, to later become the Heinz plant and will continue operating until 1975.
1903 - St. Louis and Cleveland baseball team members are injured in train accident in Henry County.
1916 - Mob attacks county jail in Lima in a lynching attempt of a black suspect accused of assaulting a white woman. Sheriff Sherman Eley and deputies stop the crowd and get the suspect out of town, but then the lynch mob invades the sheriff's residence and tries to lynch Sheriff Eley. He escapes but the sheriff's young daughter dies from shock of the events.
1925 - Toledo Zoo buys two new Bengal tigers from a wild animal dealer in New York for $3,500.
1929 - Momentum is building in Toledo and the Great lakes region for a link to the Atlantic Ocean. Toledo News Bee runs special section on latest developments to build a canal to St, Lawrence Seaway.
1931 - Note found in bottle in Maumee Bay purportedly written by the famous missing New York Judge Force Crater. It is found by a woman who turns it over to Toledo Police. It claims that Justice Crater is being held on a rum boat in the Detroit River. Crater was never found.
1981 - Young Toledo secretary Cynthia Anderson vanishes from the law office where she works in North Toledo. Her abduction triggers a massive search for many years, but she is never found.
Sept. 1
1866 - It’s reported that Toledo’s police officers are now wearing official uniforms as ordered by city council. Black pants, gray vests and a single-breasted coat.
1937 - Toledo Police begin crackdown on child molesters after a wave of such crimes are reported in the city. One shoe store clerk on Adams Street is arrested for soliciting young women to model for him for a fake fashion show.
1945 - City files legal suit to close the reputed gambling casino, the Dixie Inn on North Detroit Avenue.
1947 - Toledo Blade reports that 8,219 people in Toledo work for the railroads.
1948 - Center opens for Toledoans to sign up for Korean War duty.
1949 - Record crowd for wrestling matches at Sports Arena with over 6,700 attending and watching grapplers such as The Zebra Kid, The Red Devil and The Polish Angel perform.
1950 - First group of young men from Toledo drafted into service for duty in the Korean War report for induction into the Army.

Sept. 2
1882 - Two men building a schoolhouse in Upper Sandusky are killed when the structure collapses.
1908 - The largest parade in Toledo's history is held for the giant G.A.R. Encampment in Toledo brings together thousands of Civil War veterans of the Union Army. The parade featured a "living flag" and a choir of 3,000 Toledo schoolchildren singing the Star Spangled Banner.
1910 - The city directory shows Toledo has a population of 222,000 people, 54,000 persons more than the U.S. Census showed in April. The directory count includes at least 37,000 names of people in West Toledo who were not counted in the census.
1911 - The Maumee River claims the lives of seven people in a small launch when they are killed in collision with freighter. Six victims are city employees.
1922 - Toledo Public Library bans three books as lewd and unfit for public reading. "A Young Girl's Diary" and "Women in Love" are two of the titles that are banned from the shelves.
1926 - Eight area people are killed, and 30 injured in a horrific Interurban railway collision just north of Monroe, Michigan. The wooden passenger cars were said to be death traps as the two trains collided.
1945 - Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.
1967 - Fire at PeeWee’s Bar on Suder Avenue, Toledo Fire Lt. Chester Rybarczyk is killed.
1972 - Dave Wottle wins 800-meter competition at Munich Olympics, becoming BGSU’s first Olympic gold medalist.
1984 - The La Tabernilla, once famous restaurant and nightclub in Oregon’s Bayshore area, burns to the ground.

Sept. 3
1893 - Cornerstone is laid for the new and present-day Lucas County Courthouse.
1907 - Arsonist torches the Put-in-Bay House hotel on South Bass Island.
1913 - The city health department reports that 51 children died the month of August in Toledo, the highest month on record. The extreme heat is believed responsible for the grim death toll.
1919 - Locomotive 552 in the Wabash railyards in Toledo has killed another man. The engine is believed to be a "Hoodoo" or bad luck because several men have been killed by the locomotive over the past four years. The latest victim was 45-year-veteran engineer who was scalded to death by escaping steam.
1967 - A rebuilt and refurbished Leverette Junior High is reopened in Toledo.
2001 - The final minor league game for the Mud Hens is played at Ned Skeldon Stadium in Maumee.

Sept. 4
1830 - Early Wood County court fines John Harris $2.50 for running a horse within the Perrysburg city limits.
1929 - U.S. Coast Guard announces a full blitz of stepped-up patrols and a fleet of 20 new boats to combat the rum running on Lake Erie in the Toledo area. The Coast Guard will also start using aircraft to watch for bootleggers in boats.
1931 - The Toledo News Bee buses 300 paper boys and girls to the National Air Races in Cleveland.
1935 - WSPD Radio broadcasts from Valentine Theater as 18 Toledo area finalists audition for appearances on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour.
1940 - With much celebration, the new Toledo Public Library building opens downtown on Michigan Avenue.
1971 - WUPW-TV, Channel 36 begins broadcasting in Toledo.