Events in Toledo area over the past 150 years Week of 2/1/2021

Week of Jan. 31 through Feb. 6

Jan. 31

1922 Prohibition triggers wave of alcohol poisonings as people try to imbibe raw wood alcohol and ethanol based drinks, also called "canned heat". The Toledo Health Department reports 300 poisonings and 20 deaths from the previous year.

1932 Toledo Fire Department ladder truck and a city bus collide on Collingwood Boulevard, killing two Toledo firemen. They are identified as Captain Andrew Flynn and Bernard Orzechowski of Number 16 Hook and Ladder Co.

Feb. 1
1921 Community Traction Company begins operations with electric street car operations in Toledo.

1936 Toledo first grader Barb Lamont celebrates her sixth birthday with a bullet in her brain after she had been shot 18 months before. Doctors fear surgery might do more harm than good. The young girl is reported to be doing well in school.

1953 Toledo's Water Commissioner reports that city water use plummets during popular TV shows, then spikes when TV programs end. "I Love Lucy" ranks number on in this water ratings system.

Feb. 2
1813 Construction begins on Ft. Meigs at the banks of Maumee River by General Harrison. The fort is being readied for battle with the British in the war of 1812.

1929 The new Sandusky Bay Bridge is opened. Homing pigeons are used to send the news back to Toledo Mayor William Jackson. Only one of them makes it.

Feb. 3
1862 Work is underway on construction of POW camp for Confederate officers at Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay.

1950 Ernest Tiedtke, one of the founding brothers of the famous Toledo department store, dies at the age of 77 at his Florida winter home.

Feb. 4
1898 Toledo Mayor Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones orders draconian crackdown on Sunday activities. Jones decrees that saloons, stores and theaters are to close on the Sabbath and puts a ban on Sunday newspaper delivery. He also orders arrest of concert goers at the Valentine Theater.

1946 A near tragedy occurs when 282 students narrowly escape a blaze that tore through their school building in Temperance.

Feb. 5
1907 The Toledo Yacht Club at Bay View Park burns to the ground in a devastating fire. There were no injuries but thousands of dollars of artwork, trophies and memorabilia are lost to the flames.

1929 Herta Zimmerman , Toledo, 21, is selected in a contest called "Toledo's Most Deserving Girl" and will get to spend a week in Hollywood with movie star Mary Pickford.

1930 The Farmers and Merchants Bank in Sylvania is robbed by five gun toting bandits of more than $2,000. One of those bandits is the notorious "Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. He is later caught and convicted, but escapes on his way to the Ohio penitentiary.

Feb. 6
1884 A large section of the original Perrysburg-Maumee bridge is swept away by flood waters on the Maumee River.

1888 Industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey signs a contract to move his glass making factory from Boston to Toledo, thus ushering in Toledo's era as the "Glass Capital of the World"