This Week In Toledo History 9/5/2022

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.
1935- WSPD Radio broadcasts from Valentine Theatre 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.

Sept. 5
1865 - Wooden span of the Cherry Street Bridge is opened to traffic with new drawbridge.
1897 - First “horseless carriage” appears on an Elmore, Ohio Street.
1900 - Cresceus, Toledo's famous champion race horse, owned by George Ketcham, breaks the world record for one mile for trotters. The popular stallion achieves the milestone at 2:04 minutes and 3/4 seconds while competing in Hartford Connecticut.
1922 - Oakdale Elementary School opens its doors for students.
1954 - It’s discovered that an unknown Navy pilot dropped practice bombs on top of the Toledo water intake crib, damaging the roof.
1958 - “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” playing at Valentine, “The Naked and the Dead” playing at Pantheon Theater.

Sept. 6
1885 - Popular actor of the 1930s and 40s, Otto Kruger, is born in Toledo. Ironically, 89 years later on his birthday in 1974, Kruger died
1917 - Sixteen Toledo nurses, recent grads from Mercy nursing school, leave for war duty in Europe.
1922 - Toledo Police Detective William Martin shot and killed by car theft suspects in Fulton Garage at 302 Prescott St. His partner, Detective George Bach, is wounded.
1932 - Toledo police beef up registration of known "pickpockets." The queen of the pickpockets is "Big Majority" who works the old Tenderloin district, while others like "Little Bit", "Lifting Lena" and "Nimble Nell" are so good they can search a man's pockets while asking him for the time of day.
1945 - Within a month after the Japanese surrender in World War II, the Navy discharges the first sailors through the Toledo Naval Separation Center at the Naval Armory Building at Bay View Park.

Sept. 7
1876 - Town of Freeport in Wood County is incorporated, later to be renamed Prairie Depot and then renamed Wayne.
1887 - Downtown Toledo holds huge public celebration to usher in the natural gas boom and the promise it brings for the area’s future. Thousands attend, including former President Rutherford B. Hayes.
1888 - General William Tecumseh Sherman speaks to assembled group of Union Army veterans at the hotel at Presque Isle Amusement Park in East Toledo.
1929 - Wabash Railroad offering round trip tickets from Toledo to St. Louis for $16.50.
1937 - Downtown Woodville bank is robbed of over $1,800 by a lone bandit armed with a sawed off shotgun.

Sept. 8
1863 - Lt. George Duncan Forsythe of Toledo is captured by Confederate troops in the battle of Limestone Station, Tennessee. He and 200 soldiers of the 100th Ohio Volunteers Infantry are taken to Libbey Prison. A year later Forsythe was gunned down and killed by a guard. The GAR post in East Toledo is named in his honor; as is the street that bears his name.
1897 - Six workers killed in the Grant Oil Well explosion in Cygnet in Wood County as workers were pouring nitroglycerin into the well.
1913 - Irene Hill becomes first African American to teach in Toledo Public Schools, assigned to Erie school in North Toledo. She would teach another 36 years at TPS before retiring in 1949.
1916 - Opening of Toledo Public Schools delayed because of epidemic of infantile paralysis.
1925 - A polar bear at Toledo Zoo dies from arsenic poison. It is the second bear and fourth zoo animal to die from poisoning in recent weeks. Police are looking for a suspect.
1938 - Blaze at Willys Overland in Toledo; 14 brick buildings are destroyed.
1963 - Three thousand people attend the sesquicentennial program at Put-in-Bay, commemorating 150 years since the great Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.
1968 -The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw returns to Toledo. For the first time since it was launched from Toledo in 1944, the 292-foot cutter is docked in Toledo and open to the public. More than 4,000 people board the iconic ice breaker and take the tour.

Sept. 9
1911 - Massive fire in North Baltimore destroys several downtown buildings.
1922 - Thousands attend ceremonies as Toledo celebrates first Peter Navarre Day. The pioneer's cabin is moved to Navarre Park in East Toledo.
1962 - Jacquelyn Mayer of Sandusky crowned Miss America.
1980 - The steeple on top of the historic St. Patrick Catholic Church in downtown Toledo struck by lightning, setting the large iron cross ablaze. The fire is visible throughout downtown.
1983 - Hundreds of abandoned graves from the "Sunshine" cemetery are discovered at the old Toledo State Hospital. They are unearthed by contractors putting in sewer project.

Sept. - 10
1813 - Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British in the Battle of Lake Erie, fought near Put-in-Bay at South Bass Island.
1873 - At the annual “Fat Man’s Convention” held at Put-in-Bay, Joseph Templeton, 66, of Swanton wins the honors as the fattest delegate weighing in at 437 pounds. His prize is the coveted gold-headed cane. Templeton says he was thin at one time in his life, but over the years gained the weight.
1892 -World’s largest puffball found on the Sarnes' farm at Elmore, Ohio and is to be shown at World’s Fair.
1905 - School board member Pauline Steinam says Toledo's kindergarten teachers are not required to have any formal education and are the "laughing stock" of the state.
1931 - Movie actor Philip Baker Hall born in Toledo. Hall was known for his character roles as a tough guy. Often with a comedic edge.
1946 - Extreme meat shortage of historical proportion has closed meat markets and butter shops in Toledo area and other cities nationwide.