This Week in Toledo History Week of 5/17/2021

May 16
1855 - The schooner "Visitor" sinks in a storm near West Sister Island. The captain of the boat goes down with it.
1899 - Tornadoes sweep through Northwest Ohio. Heavy damage is reported. In Montpelier, a schoolhouse is blown down with children inside. The teachers and several students are injured.
1947 - Smallpox vaccine is rushed to Fostoria area after a migrant worker dies from the disease and others are exposed.
1953 - Springfield Twp. firemen hold a stag party of 1,500 that gets out of control at the Secor Road Armory. Toledo Police are called and a small riot ensues with chairs and fisticuffs being thrown. Several women are arrested for indecent exposure and other arrests are made for illegal gambling.

May 17
1825 - One of the earliest tornadoes in recorded local history rolls through areas of Seneca County. Described by witnesses as a "violent fury that uprooted entire forests of large tress, hurled animals skyward and made the ground rumble beneath one's feet." Three people died in that sparsely populated area at the time.
1882 - The passenger ship, "The American Eagle" explodes nears Kelleys Island, killing 10 people.
1916 - Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass Company is formed in Toledo and will revolutionize the methods by which sheet glass is made. The factory that will make the glass is being built in West Virginia.
1929 - Forest Park Amusements on Woodville Road near Genoa is billed as "Toledo's Greatest Amusement Park" and opens for business with a special Dentzel Carousel, a roller coaster, skating rink, dance hall and other rides and games.
1941 - The new post office opens on 2nd Street in Perrysburg.
1953 - The newly built Fire Station #1 at Huron and Orange Streets opens in downtown Toledo.
1954 - Black leaders in the City of Toledo hail the "Brown vs. Board of Education" ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that ends segregation in public schools.
2001 - Ground is broken for the long-awaited Maumee River crossing project. When complete by 2007, it will be called the Veteran's Memorial Skyway.

May 19
1889 - Salem United Methodist Church in East Toledo is dedicated.
1904 - Independent saloon keepers in Toledo ask the police department to start cleaning up the so-called "badlands" or "Tenderloin." They claim these places in this section of town are morally unfit for consumers of liquor.
1917 - Toledo Mayor Charles Milroy orders police to send all "imported negro laborers" in the city to labor in the stone quarry at the work farm. He claims crime has gone up because of the "negro labor camps" that have sprung up in the area.
1926 -Defiance police say an 80-year-old woman was wheeled into town on a pushcart powered by her husband and son. Mrs. William Saxon said she was touring from Grand Rapids Michigan. Defiance police however wanted them to tour elsewhere and escorted them back to the Michigan State line.
1931 - Toledo Police officer Edward O'Briest is shot to death by an unknown gunman while he was on an undercover assignment in the 300 block of Moorish Avenue.
1947 - The search for the Toledo couple wanted for the murders of two young boys comes to an end when they are apprehended. Harold Lehaney, a Community Traction bus driver, and his wife Florence are captured in Waterloo, Iowa and will face charges of murder in Toledo in the killings of a 2-year old and his 4-year-old brother. The boys had been left in their care at their home on Bigelow Street.
1953 - Toledo voters approve a 3.5-mil tax levy to fund the construction of the new Toledo Express Airport in Western Lucas County.

May 20
1898 - Dow and Snell wholesale warehouse is destroyed by fire and Fire Captain Oscar Wills is killed while fighting the blaze.
1906 - Ice dealers in the city are taking heat from city officials and the prosecutor for price gouging. Many housewives said they had to stop buying ice because of the dealer's tactics.
1930 -Textile Leather Company on Stickney Avenue begins operations and will produce the first synthetic leather ever made in Toledo.
1931 - Burroughs School in South Toledo is dedicated.
1956 - Vice Mayor Ned Skeldon suggests that Maumee and Toledo should consolidate. Maumee and Toledo residents don't seem to like the idea.
1961 - Fourteen Indian bones and skulls are found near Wales Road in Rossford by four boys digging near the city dump.
1965 - The Beach Boys play at the Toledo Sports Arena. Opening act is a Toledo group called the Vandeliers.

May 21
1904 - Theater chain owner and well-known showman, Frank Burt is shot by his wife in front of his theater on Jefferson Avenue. Mrs. Addie Burt is arrested and taken to jail. Burt manages to survive the bullet wound to the eye and tells police his wife was jealous of a woman she believed to be his lover.
1913 - Toledo newspaper readers get first look at the proposed new Toledo Club building to be constructed at Madison and 14th streets.
1920 - Three convicted killers escape the Ottawa County Jail in Port Clinton by sawing through the bars of the cells.
1931 - A spectacular fire sends shrouds of flame and smoke skyward at the National Milling Company silos on Front and Paine Streets. The $250,000 blaze was thought to be started by a river dredge. It took at least two hours for firemen to bring it under control.
1976 - Governor Jim Rhodes, in a speech to area business types, promises that Northwest Ohio will get a major state park in the future with lodges, golf courses, camping and recreational facilities. That state park would come to fruition many years later as Maumee Bay State Park.

May 22
1838 - The first "mixed" marriage reported in Toledo between a white woman and a mulatto man.
1852 - First steam powered train runs from Toledo to Chicago.
1893 - Fire engine house #1 at 614 Lagrange is abandoned by the fire department and later used as a police substation and jail.
1904 - Seven people die in the Lakeshore Novelty plant explosion and fire in Findlay. The factory makes railroad torpedoes and fireworks. The initial blast was said to have shaken much of the community.
1925 - Hundreds of people flock to the newly opened Madison Gardens Ballroom at Madison and 15th. It would later be renamed the Tri-anon Ballroom and would become one of Toledo's top entertainment spots and dance halls in the 1940's and 50's.
1959 -The new I-280 Expressway is dedicated as the Detroit-Toledo expressway. It is the first "expressway" in the area. Originally it was to be called the "Seaway Expressway".
1979 - Owens Illinois headquarters building observes its groundbreaking ceremonies along the riverfront in downtown Toledo. A world record is set for the number of participants with over 5,000 Toledoans grabbing a shovel to help out.
1984 - Violence erupts on the picket lines of the AP Parts plant on Matzinger Road in Toledo. Union members are protesting the company’s use of non-union workers. The protest flares into spasms of violence and police are called to the scene, arresting more than 100 strikers.