This Week in Toledo History - March 9-15

 
March 9
 
1822: Sam Ewing is killed in bar fight at Roche de Boeuf in Waterville, the first recorded bar fight and murder in Toledo-area history.
 
1868: Ice and floods slam downtown Toledo. Buildings on the riverfront are damaged and part of the Cherry Street Bridge is destroyed.
 
1921: President Warren Harding gets gift of a dog from Charles Quscheke, of Toledo. “Laddie Boy,” a male Airedale, would become the first celebrity White House dog. He was beloved by both children and adults.
 
1929: The old fairgrounds in Bowling Green are sold to the city to become a park and golf course.
 
1943: Jacob Rinebold, Toledo’s last Civil War veteran, dies at the age of 92. He joined the Union Army as a 14-year old runaway and lived his last years on Walbridge Avenue in South Toledo.
 
 
March 10
 
1894: The business district of Cygnet in Wood County is leveled by flames from a runaway fire.
 
1913: In Toledo, William Knox rolls the first 300 game ever recorded at a national bowling tournament.
 
1918: A tornado rips through Northwest Ohio, killing five people.
 
1919: Bowling Green to Toledo Interurban slams into a Cloverleaf train near Maumee; 48 people are injured.
 
1936: Grand jury panel is hearing evidence in morals case against two night clubs in Toledo near Dixie Highway that feature cross-dressing exotic dancers.
 
 
March 11
 
1906: Head-on locomotive crash on B&O tracks near Bloomdale in southern Wood County kills two and injures 14 others.
 
1924: Howard Vine, local mechanic in Genoa. survives a collision with train at the Washington Street New York Central crossing in Genoa. His truck is overturned, but he miraculously escapes.
 
1961: Toledoan, Captain William Morgan, is executed by Fidel Castro in Cuba. Morgan had gone to Cuba in 1958 to help Castro to power, but he later became disillusioned by Castro’s new communist government which had him arrested and executed.
 
2002: A large and potentially dangerous hole is discovered in the reactor head of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ottawa County. The lakefront plant is shut down over a year for repair.
 
 
March 12
 
1872: The first Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway train makes first run from Cleveland to Toledo on Northern route passing through Port Clinton, Oak Harbor and Clay Center. The southern route started earlier through Fremont, Elmore and Genoa.
 
1886: Toledo’s House of Corrections on Broadway for young boys is burned to the ground.
 
1928: Citing a lack of formal charges, a Toledo judge releases 219 people from custody who had been rounded up at an illegal speakeasy.
 
1943: It’s reported that Genoa and Clay Township have 162 men and two women now in the service in World War II  and 23 of them are stationed overseas.
 
1937: City of Toledo ends use of Toledo Police paddy wagons to take people to hospitals after a 10-year-old boy dies in a patrol wagon.
 
 
March 13
 
1905: Genoa Bank is robbed by safecrackers using dynamite to blow open the safe to get $3,000 in cash. The safe door was blown across Main Street. The bandits escape in a stolen horse and buggy.
 
1938: Florence Scott Libbey, widow of Edward Drummond Libbey, and driving force behind the building of the Peristyle at the Toledo Museum of Art, dies in California.
 
1951: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in East Toledo at 4th and Euclid streets is gutted by flames.
 
1977: A lost pilot, low on fuel, lands his single engine plane on the Ohio Turnpike near the Bryan exit. No injuries and no accidents, but traffic was backed up for miles.
 
 
March 14
 
1911: Toledo estimates that it has about 160,000 shade trees along city streets and half of them are elm trees.
 
1933: Heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey visits a welfare house in Toledo. He tells jobless men “not to give up hope,” and that “the sun will shine sooner or later.”
 
1952: Noah Hetrick, an old-time wagon builder from Lindsay has been picked to repair and rehab Fremont famous cannon “Old Betsy,” which played a crucial role in defeat of British at Ft. Stephenson.
 
1975: The end of an era for east suburban residents as the Buckeye Stages bus company closes down and halts runs from Port Clinton to Toledo.
 
 
March 15
 
1918: Native Germans 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's annual “Marble or “Mibs” tournament at the Valentine Theater.
 
1933: Big excitement as Woodville police chase and apprehend two suspects who had been putting slugs into the slot machines at the Buckeye Restaurant.
 
1943: With the heavy volume of “war calls,” Northern Ohio Telephone says it will no longer allow operators to give out the time of day when callers ask.
 
1964: The Beatles appear on closed-circuit TV at Rivoli Theater on St. Clair St. in downtown Toledo as thousands of screaming fans pack the venue.