This Week In Toledo History

September 15
1886 -A doctor and med student are arrested in Toledo for robbing the grave of a 17-year-old, Belle Bowen, near Attica. They put it aboard a train to Toledo for use as a cadaver at the Medical College. The body was found in a trunk at the Wheeling Lake Erie Rail Depot.
1914 - Bowling Green State Normal College (later to become BGSU) is opened for students.
1920 - Baseball legend Babe Ruth plays an exhibition game at Swayne Field in Toledo.
1934 -The newly constructed Reptile House is dedicated at the Toledo Zoo. It was built by relief labor using salvaged materials from the canal locks, the Wabash Railroad, the old Jefferson School and from the old sidewalks along Cherry Street.
1953 - The township of Oregon forms its first fire department.
1967 -The Toledo Mud Hens win Governors’ Cup Championship of the International League for the first time.

September 16
1896 - Abolitionist and Toledo Congressman during the Civil War, James Ashley, dies of heart attack at age 74. Ashley was also a Governor of the Montana Territory and was the builder of the Ann Arbor Railroad.
1933 - Search begins for missing mail plane along shore of Lake Erie. Wreckage is found near Jackson, Michigan. Pilot, Harold Neff is alert and talking when rescued, but dies two days later.
1938 - The City of Toledo cuts off all relief money to about 8,000 people.
1959 - First edition of Oregon News is distributed on the streets.

September 17
1909 - Four “tramps” picked up by Fostoria Police and taken to court and then ordered to be washed down with hoses and put in jail for five days on bread and water.
1930 - Prudence Lamb, of Perrysburg, confronts city workers with a rifle as they try to tear down her new white picket fence on Front Street. Police return the next day with a posse and a machine gun and proceed to remove what they say is an illegal fence.
1937 - The newly built Naval Armory at Bay View Park opens with a grand ceremony and dinner. Thousands attend the gala event.
1938 - Fourteen strikers are shot by guards on the picket line at the Federal Creosote Plant in Toledo. Two of the strikers were seriously wounded.
1973 - Notorious Toledo gangster Thomas “Yonnie” Licavoli dies at his home in Columbus a few years following his controversial pardon by Governor Jim Rhodes.

September 18
1902 - Toledo pioneer and well-known community figure, Elijah Woodruff celebrates his 100th birthday with a big party held at Navarre Park in East Toledo.
1937 - Commodore Perry Statue is erected and dedicated in downtown Perrysburg.
1970 - Toledo Policeman William Miscannon shot to death while in his patrol wagon on Dorr Street. The man accused of the killing was put on trial twice and both times the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
1981 - Toledo real estate developer Peter Sawicki shot to death near his home as he attempts to rescue his daughter during an attack by the notorious Cook brothers.

September 19
1863 - Battle of Chickamauga unfolds in Tennessee and Georgia. Toledo’s 14th OVI Regiment took many casualties. Commander General James Steedman of Toledo was wounded and had his horse shot out from under him.
1864 - A plot by Confederates is thwarted on Lake Erie. Rebels were to hijack passenger boats on the Lake and use them to free the rebel prisoners held at the confederate POW camp on Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay.
1884 - Earthquake tremors felt in Toledo and throughout Northern Ohio. The shaking was so bad, the Williams County courthouse in Bryan suffered severe damage and had to be rebuilt.
1929 - Roger Conant, curator of reptiles at Toledo Zoo, is bitten by rattlesnake at the zoo. The bite is very serious and Conant develops lock jaw and loses a thumb.

September 20
1864 - Toledo ends the volunteer police force and begins formation of paid police department.
1898 - Toledo’s deadliest fire occurs when flames race through the Paddock and Hodge Grain Works in East Toledo. Fourteen workers die in the explosions and fires.
1958 - Toledo fireman Ken Williams killed in blaze at S & S Distributors on Central Avenue.
1956 - A massive electric blackout occurs when the wrong valve is thrown on a turbine at the Bay Shore Power Station and power is severed for 150 communities.

September 21
1904 - Home rental ads in Toledo list a small cottage in East Toledo at $6 a month, or a new two-story home on Cherry at $30 a month.
1911 - A bull being led to stockyard in the West Toledo escapes and goes on a rampage down Phillips Avenue, ripping up fences, smashing wagons, and terrorizing neighbors. Police finally cornered the restless beast which sold the next day for 8 cents a pound.
1934 -Waite High School’s new 15,000-seat football stadium is dedicated. Waite Indians defeat visiting team from the Mooseheart School for Boys in Illinois, 6-3.
1966 - A riot erupts at Toledo House of Corrections, triggered by complaints of poor food and crowded conditions. Several inmates and officers were injured in the melee.