This Week in Toledo History - March 16-22

March 16
1910: Auto racing pioneer Barney Oldfield of Toledo sets world speed record of 131.7 MPH 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 a numbered system of identification.
1936: Another 400 young men are hired by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to perform public works jobs in Toledo at wages of $19 to $25 a month.
March 17
1842: Wyandot Indians of Northwest Ohio sign treaty to give up lands and are relocated to lands in Oklahoma and Kansas.
1855: A "chain gang" is formed in Toledo to put inmates to work.
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.
1949: Bowling Green State University’s men’s basketball loses to eventual champion San Francisco in NIT semi-finals. The Falcons went on to defeat Bradley in the third place game.
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
1865: The Woolworth large axe handle factory in Carroll Twp. in Ottawa County catches fire. The entire building and contents are lost to flames.
1895: The roundhouse of the Wabash Railroad on South Street near the Maumee River goes up in flames. Three men are killed by a falling wall. Nine others are injured.
1907: The historic Exchange Hotel in Perrysburg is destroyed by fire. It is a hotel where President William Henry Harrison once stayed.
1927: Toledo flapper Vivian Ingram confesses from a Toledo jail cell to holding up nine gas stations in Toledo and staging so called "petting" parties to make money for her kids.
1931: Nine fishing boats from Toledo head out into Lake Erie to begin fishing season for catches of perch and pickerel.
1949: European art works 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 over $50 million. 

March 19
1915: Five largest bakers in Toledo indicted for violation of anti-trust laws, accused of fixing the wholesale price of bread in the city.
1934: New York Central RR offers a $4 round trip fare from Toledo to Chicago.
1948: Severe wind storm hits the region. Heavy widespread damage reported. Two altar boys killed when steeple on Delphos Church collapses.
1957: A dynamite demolition reduces to rubble the last spans of the Ash- Consaul Street Bridge over the Maumee River as spectators look on.
 
March 20
1874: Peter Navarre, early frontiersman, pioneer of Toledo and hero of war of 1812, dies at age 89 in a hotel room at Front and Main Streets.
1919: A major blaze roars through the C.E. Powers Elevator at Genoa, causing some $50,000 in damage.
1922: Failing to report to local hospitals for “treatment” of social diseases, 68 Toledo women are arrested and sent to a detention home.
1943: Ceremonies are held in East Toledo as the keel is laid for the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw at Toledo Shipyards. It would become the largest cutter on the Great Lakes in its 60 years of operation.
 
March 21
1879: The war horse of President Hayes, “Old Whitey,” dies in Fremont. The horse was spirited, and Hayes rode in more than 30 battles in Virginia and the South with it. The 29-year-old war horse was buried on the Hayes estate at Spiegel Grove.
1920: Strict enforcement of a ban on public dances on Sundays is now underway.
1931: Sinclair Lewis, Nobel prize winning author for literature, appears in Toledo at the Valentine Theater but tells reporters he'd rather be home slopping his hogs on his farm in Vermont.
1932: Dell Hair, Toledo’s well-known poet-cop, dies at the age of 60. He penned several poetry books while serving as a Toledo policeman.
1959: The new Presque Isle cargo facility is nearly ready to accept cargo at the recently built terminal and docks.
 
March 22
1865: The News Herald reports that the maple sugar taps are producing heavy amounts near Genoa, with 700 pounds of the sweep sap already produced.
1911: Powder house at the American Gypsum quarry at Port Clinton blows up. Six rail cars are destroyed and two workmen are injured.
1933: The end of prohibition is drawing near. President Roosevelt gives approval of the sale of 3.2 beer.
1969: A Toledo Fire pumper truck, responding to a false alarm, collides with a car at Jackman and Laskey. One fireman, Louis Fuhr, is killed.
1973: Singer John Denver sets off firestorm of criticism in Toledo when he sings the parody ballad "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" on the Tonight Show.