This Week In Toledo History

January 12
1859 -Temps in Toledo plunge to 12 below zero.
1904 - A mother and seven children are found living in a freezing shanty in a Jerusalem Twp. marsh near Lake Erie. The family was huddled in straw for warmth. Local farmers take them in to care for them.
1918 - Severe deep freeze and blizzard hits the Toledo area. Railroads are stopped; ambulances and street shovelers are overwhelmed. 200 Overland factory workers are treated for frostbite they suffered as they walked to work.
1930 - Toledo health officials are investigating reports of the rare “Parrot Fever” in Toledo, said to have come from imported birds.
1944 - Colony Shopping Center at Monroe and Central is destroyed by fire. Blaze starts in basement of bowling alley and spreads. Toledo Fireman James Fakeheny is killed by a falling slab of concrete.
1963 - Mass rescue operation on Lake Erie at Reno Beach the Coast Guard plucks 150 fishermen from floes of breaking ice.

January 13
1905 - Safe crackers from Toledo blow up safe in Fulton County courthouse in Wauseon and steal over $10,000 in treasury money. They flee the scene in a horse and buggy.
1911 - A report from Columbus and the board of pharmacy says Toledo sells more illegal cocaine than any other city in the state of Ohio, and not just to "lower classes", but dealers are also selling to children.
1930 - Perrysburg local pharmacist Wilbert Livingston is shot three times in cold blood near his home on Front Street by an old acquaintance.

January 14
1875 - University of Toledo opens in basement of the half-finished Unitarian Church on the corner of Adams and 10th Street.
1906 - Toledo police raid a "Sunday" burlesque show at Empire Theater and arrest entire company of performers for violation of the Sunday amusement prohibitions.
1943 - Some Maumee High School boys wear skirts to school in protest of girls who are starting to wear slacks.
1953 - Toledo Police uncover 15 pints of nitro-glycerin buried at Willys Park and have it detonated on site. The nitro had been buried three years before, by a would-be safe cracker. He confesses for fear that kids might find the explosives.
1995 - Rock singer, Ruby Starr, a Toledo native dies in from lung cancer at the age of 45. Starr, born Constance Mierzwiak, sang in several local groups before gaining national prominence as a member of group Black Oak Arkansas in the 1970's.

January 15
1900 - A major fire breaks out at Oak Harbor’s Thierwechter elevator. Heroic work by firefighters to save the 12,000 bushel structure is credited with preventing it from being a total loss.
1914 -Toledo police reinstate the use of billy-clubs after they had been banned by Mayor Samuel Jones who considered them a barbarous weapon of the past.
1936 - First building in the United States covered in glass is completed in Toledo at the Owens-Illinois research facility on Westwood Avenue near Dorr Street. It is covered entirely in 80,000 glass blocks and has no windows.

January 16
1918 - South branch of Toledo Library opens on Broadway.
1930 - A teenaged woman serving as a volunteer timekeeper for a basketball game at Hamilton School in Toledo is severely beaten and left unconscious by some members of the "Elm Street Aces" who accuse her of ending the game early, thus allowing their defeat.
1936 - A 12-year old girl is rescued from a brothel. She told police she had also been dancing at a strip club called the "Happy Hour" on Summit Street. One man was arrested.
1960 - Future serial killer Henry Lee Lucas arrested in Toledo for the murder of his 74-year-old mother in Tecumseh, Michigan. He was released later from prison only to commit a series of murders across the nation.

January 17
1893 - Former U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes dies at his Spiegel Grove home in Fremont.
1912 - Newly constructed Toledo Museum of Art opens its doors to crowds of more than 5,000 people. Toledo’s Edward Drummond Libbey, the museum founder, was given a key to the city by Mayor Brand Whitlock.
1921 - Two railroad detectives are robbed and then shot to death in a brazen robbery while driving on South Broadway as they carry $12,000 in passenger ticket receipts.
1977 - Coldest 24-hour period on record begins in Toledo.

January 18
1930 - Seven U.S. Coast Guardsmen are charged with accepting a bribe from Canadian rum runners from Toledo. They are later cleared of the charges.
1942 - A Toledo judge warns draft dodgers that he will “not hesitate” to send them to jail for five years.
1948 - Willys-Overland in Toledo announces new family Jeep sedan with four doors, six-cylinder engine and passenger- type interior.
1958- It’s reported that shoppers in the downtown LaSalle department store were terrorized by the mysterious release of 35 mice and four pigeons in the store. The prank is believed to be strike-related.