This Week In Toledo History

March 12
1872 - The first train of the Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway makes a run from Cleveland to Toledo, passing through Sandusky, Port Clinton, Oak Harbor and Clay Center.
1886 - The House of Corrections on Broadway for young boys is burned to the ground.
1904 - A colorful character by the name of "Pick" Hoobler, a Waterville sportsman reputed to be the ultimate expert on Maumee River fishing, predicts an early spring fishing season. Says the fish, especially black bass will be plentiful.
1928 - Citing a lack of formal charges, a Toledo judge releases 219 people from custody at the Safety Building. They had been rounded up and arrested at what police said was an illegal speakeasy or cabaret called the Graystone on Washington Street.
1934 -Outlaw John Dillinger reportedly sighted in downtown Toledo.
1964 - General Food store at Put-in-Bay destroyed by flames.

March 13
1905 - Genoa Banking Company in that small village is robbed by safe-crackers who use dynamite to blow open the bank safe to get $3,000 in cash. The safe door was blown across the street. The bandits escaped in a stolen horse and buggy.
1938 - Florence Scott Libbey dies. She is the widow of Edward Drummond Libbey and played a major role in the creation of the Toledo Museum of Art and later, the Peristyle Auditorium.
1951 - St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in East Toledo at Fourth and Euclid Streets is gutted by flames.
1957 - More than 100 people are rescued by aerial ladders from upper floors of Paramount Building after smoky fire breaks out at the Hardy Shoe company building next door.
1964 - Morals squad of Toledo Police raid the Gayety Theater on Summit Street and charge projectionist with showing obscenities.

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 and half of them are elm trees.
1933 - Heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and city officials visit a welfare house in Toledo. Dempsey tells jobless men “not to give up hope,” and that “the sun will shine sooner or later.”
1966 - Southeast Michigan residents near Toledo begin seeing strange lights and reports of UFOs are made from Ann Arbor to Monroe.
1975 - Buckeye Stages bus company ceases operations and halts runs from Port Clinton to Toledo. It was the last local bus company serving that area.

March 15
1894 - Wood County Courthouse foundation is laid.
1918 - Native Germans living in Toledo are being told to surrender all weapons to federal marshals as U.S. involvement in World War I increases.
1925 - News Bee announces schedule for the Toledo Public School annual “Marble Tournament” to be held this year at Valentine Theater.
1943 - Assistant Trilby Fire Chief Ralph Pelton rescues two children from a burning home on Glenn Street. He is later awarded the Carnegie Hero Medal.
1964 - Beatles appear on closed-circuit TV at Rivoli Theater downtown, thousands of screaming fans pack the venue.

March 16
1910 - Automobile racing pioneer Barney Oldfield of Toledo sets world speed record of 131.7 miles-per-hour at Daytona in Florida.
1916 - A taxicab company from Detroit announces it will begin the city's first taxi service on the streets of Toledo.
1925- Point Place officials move to change scores of street names to numbered street names.
1936 - Another 400 young men are hired by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to perform public works jobs in Toledo at a rate of $19 to $25 a month.

March 17
1842 - Wyandot Indians of Northwest Ohio sign treaty to give up lands and leave Ohio. They eventually are relocated to lands in Oklahoma and Kansas.
1855 - A "chain gang" is formed in Toledo to put inmates to work.
1890 - Bowling Green Opera House opens.
1903 - One killed, two people injured in a boiler explosion near downtown Toledo.
1936 - Toledo Police and school officials express shock and launch investigation into reports that 50 high school students took part in a liquor- fueled “petting party” and orgy.

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

March 18
1895 - The roundhouse of the Wabash Railroad at the foot of South Street at the Maumee River, goes up in flames. Three men are killed by a falling wall. Nine others are injured. There were six locomotives inside the building at the time and Fire Chief Mayo said all were heavily damaged.
1907 - The historic Exchange Hotel in Perrysburg is destroyed by fire. It is a hotel where President William Henry Harrison once stayed.
1931 - Nine fishing boats from Toledo head out into Lake Erie to begin fishing season for perch and pickerel.
1949 - The European art stolen by the Nazi's and recovered by the U.S. Army are on display at the Toledo Museum of Art. The paintings were found hidden in salt mines in Poland and valued at more than $50 million. Thousands of Toledo area school children visit the museum.
(Footnote: it was a Genoa solider, Merle Rudes, serving in Poland in 1945 who tipped off authorities about the salt mines after local women there told him something might be hidden inside.)