This Week In Toledo History

March 26
1905 - News Bee reports that more than 300 immigrants from Hungary have arrived in Toledo in the past week and most are settling in Birmingham neighborhood of East Toledo.
1912 -Toledo Zoo officials announce they have collected enough money from area residents to buy “Babe,” a giant male Indian elephant from a zoo in Missouri. Babe would later become one of the zoo’s most popular animal attractions.
1913 - Flooding continues to spread throughout much of Ohio. People throughout the area scramble to roofs of houses and treetops. Food supplies running short. Northwest Ohio looks like inland sea. Over 400 people have died across the state.
1960 - Genoa Mayor Oliver Tester publicly scolds a policeman who he said was arresting too many Mexican migrants for traffic violations. Tester said the police officers should stop and issue tickets to all traffic offenders, regardless of whom they are or where they come from.

March 27
1924 - Shocking news from little town of Harborview in Lucas County, when the Mayor L.H. Shovar and four deputies are arrested by federal agents and charged with selling beer from the courtroom that had been confiscated from area bootleggers.
1925 - Toledo’s annual marbles (or “mibs”) tournament for boys is underway and covered extensively by press.
1930 - Two U.S. Coast Guardsmen from Port Clinton and Marblehead seize three rum boats in Lake Erie. The bootleggers manage to escape through a marshy area on foot, but the boats and 20 cases of liquor were confiscated.
1957 - A state investigation reveals that four notorious gambling parlors in Lucas County are being run by the Detroit crime syndicate. Those clubs, including the Old Dix Inn and the New Benore Club are raided and padlocked. Investigators said they were among eight clubs near the state line that were being watched by agents. The clubs featured dice and blackjack tables and were run "professionally".
1995 - Owens Corning Corp and civic leaders break ground for new World Headquarters building on the old Middle Grounds area along downtown Toledo riverfront.

March 28
1901 - Toledo School Board President John Dowd says he is in favor of the "expression" of the child and not the "repression" of the child. "
1915 - Selma Newman is born in Toledo. She would later graduate from Scott High and UT. She became Selma Rubin through marriage and moved to Santa Barbara, California where she was an influential and energetic environmental activist. The Toledo native is considered the co-founder of Earth Day in 1970.
1920 - Deadly Palm Sunday tornadoes move across Northwest Ohio. A twister hits the Genoa area, heavily damaging homes and destroying one building. Two Genoa women were killed. As many as 19 people are reported to have died in Northwest Ohio.

March 29
1902 - Tontogany farmer W.T. Van Valenburg sends townspeople on a treasure hunt as he enlists scores of people to search the fields for his missing wallet containing $300 in cash.
1933 - Murder at the Park Lane Hotel in Toledo when the night manager is gunned down by two men. One of whom he had kicked out the hotel two days before. Two local gangsters are later caught, convicted and executed for the murder.
1956 - Middleweight boxer Wilbert "Skeeter" McClure of Toledo is named to a spot in the Pan American Games in September. He would go on to win a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics.
1973 - With grocery prices starting to rise sharply, housewives in Toledo rally to urge that consumers begin a boycott of high meat prices.

March 30
1900 -Toledo city officials report that 96-year-old Stephen Wood has taken out a marriage license to wed 50-year-old Martha Lindsay in Toledo. He outlived three other wives. His fourth wedding to take place without delay.
1919 -Riots in downtown Toledo are reported as thousands of supporters of Eugene V. Debs storm Memorial Hall where the socialist leader was not allowed to give a speech.
1921 - At a shop on Ontario Street, a live concert is heard from Pittsburgh on a “wireless telephone” (radio). The News Bee opines that these new instruments may become popular in the future.
1966 - Northwest Ohio economy is booming. They state the area opened 79 new plants in the past year.

March 31
1892 - Lynch mob of 1000 "respectable citizens" in Hancock County breaks into county jail in Findlay and abducts Joseph Lytle who was being held on charges of killing his wife and daughter with an ax. The mob drags Lytle outside and hangs him from a bridge, riddled with bullets.

1909 - Toledo labor official expresses concern that young boys aren’t entering the harness-making trade. He fears that there will soon be no harness-makers left in the city.
1949 - Pinball machine cash payouts outlawed in the City of Toledo.
1973 - Singer Patrice Munsel, performing at the Masonic Auditorium in Toledo, is reunited with her pet boa constrictor "George" after leaving it in a Lansing, Michigan hotel.

April 1
1918 - Toledo police officer Louis Jazwiecki dies after being shot the previous night during an arrest attempt of two men at Erie and Walnut.
1941 - WPA announces opening of second “toy lending library” in Toledo to help poor children.
1943 - It is reported that Nelson and Bernard Moss – a father and son from Toledo – have enlisted in the Navy and are now at Great Lakes Training Center near Chicago.
1969 - City bulldozers destroy the 50-year-old “Garden of Eden” created by minister Cassius Hettinger at his home on Upton Avenue in 1919. The controversial edifice of sea shells and concrete hosted many weddings and busloads of weekend tourists.