This Week In Toledo History Week of 8/2/2021

August 1
1885 - Soldiers monument unveiled in Fremont at Fort Stephenson Park.
1908 - The new Secor Hotel in downtown Toledo opens for its first guests. The new hotel has 304 rooms, many with private bathrooms. It features a spacious new lobby with green and gold decor, a European dining room finished in Louis XIV style and large pillars in the dining area wrapped in grapevines laden with ripe white and black grapes.
1915 - Ohio Oil Company is formed to produce petroleum products from the oil being recovered in Northwest Ohio.
1916 - A sick camel given to the city of Toledo Zoo by Barnum and Bailey Circus dies an hour later after it is given a cold bottle of beer to drink by a city veterinarian.
1921 - Tragic day on Toledo streets for the Toledo Police Department. Patrolman William Kress killed while trying to arrest man with a gun on State Street. He left behind a wife and six-year-old daughter. He died on the third anniversary of wearing a TPD badge.
1928 - Massive explosion and fire on Spencer Street destroys three industrial businesses and injures two men.
1928 - An angry farmer shoots and wounds two caddies at Toledo's Heatherdowns Golf Course who were hunting for lost balls in his field adjoining the course.
1965 - Plane crash near Woodville kills four people.

August 2
1813 - Americans turn back British troops after a siege on Fort Stephenson in Fremont along the Sandusky River.
1899 - John Brown, Jr., son of the famous abolitionist John Brown, dies at his home on South Bass Island in Ottawa County.
1927 - Joe Foley, a lake freighter crewman and circus worker, discovered to be a woman after he is arrested in Toledo. He is really Alice Lovejoy of Massachusetts.
1931 - Kay Carroll, a Toledo girl who became a "Vanities" star on Broadway dies suddenly at home in Toledo from peritonitis. The News Bee says the 26-year-old beauty was headed for greater fame on Broadway and Hollywood had not death intervened.
1934 - Major windstorm hits the region. Heavy damage to Lake Erie islands.
1940 - Toledo Police raid several gambling dens in the city. Twenty-five people arrested as gambling equipment and tables are axed.
1972 - Forty teenagers, some as young as 13, are arrested at the Gigolo Club on West Central Avenue which is busted for serving underage kids who have been partying there for several weeks.

August 3
1795 - Treaty of Greenville signed as a result of General Anthony Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794, requiring Native American tribes to give up large tracts of land in Ohio and Northwest Territory.
1846 - Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones born into poverty in Wales. He would later become an oil millionaire and Toledo’s most famous and influential mayor.
1898 - Ground broken for the Edward Ford plate glass plant in Rossford.
1930 - Airplane crashes into carnival tent in Findlay, killing 9-year-old son of a carnival performer.
1936 - So-called “Tin Can Tourists” (today called RV'ers) begin to descend on Sandusky with 500 trailers for an annual camping conclave.
1945 - Toledo zookeeper Louis Durliat loses two fingers and a thumb when they are bitten off by “Bob” the chimpanzee while cleaning its cage.
1963 - "The General" the famous locomotive commandeered by Andrews Raiders in the Civil War arrives at Toledo's Union Station. Hundreds gather to see the historic train. Many of the Andrew Raiders' 19 crew members were from Toledo area.
1972 - Southwyck Mall on Reynolds Road opens for business. It would close 36 years later on June 29th, 2008.

August 4
1887 - Fire destroys a large part of Bowling Green’s business district.
1910 - Mayor Brand Whitlock orders Toledo Police not to arrest boys for swimming in the Maumee River until “suitable” swimming pools are built in the city for their “rightful” use.
1911 - Willys-Overland in Toledo is advertising its new five-passenger touring car for just $900.
1944 - Truck loaded with hogs slams into store at corner of Main and Wooster in B.G., destroys the front wall of drug store.
1968 - Search underway for four people on Lake Erie after plane crash near South Bass Island.
1979 - National farm labor leader Cesar Chavez visits Toledo.

August 5
1894 - Massive fire hits barrel stave factory at Oak Harbor.
1905 - News reports say Toledo has become a hub for human slave traffic from Canada. Young girls from Montreal are being lured to Toledo with promises of employment only to be put into immoral servitude.

1952 - Toledo Mud Hens owner Danny Menendez indicted for season ticket sales fraud after moving team to West Virginia.
1959 - Bargain Barn stores in Toledo are selling Navy surplus DDT bombs for 79 cents each. "Will kill all pests within 150 feet."
1964 - A major fire sweeps through Norbalt Rubber plant in North Baltimore.
1979 - Gulf Oil Refinery on Front Street in East Toledo catches fire after a lightning strike. The spectacular blaze consumes a million gallons of gasoline and could be seen for 40 miles.

August 6
1902 - Toledo now has 88 automobiles in use around the city.
1916 - Extreme heat wave hits Toledo with temps near 103 degrees.
1917 - Oregon Township officially becomes a village.
1935- The sprawling Milburn Wagon Works factory in west Toledo being readied for demolition. Thousands of the old bricks from the factory are to be salvaged for use on projects at the Toledo Zoo.
1958 - Five people, including a Bowling Green policeman, are shocked by lightning at the Wood County Fair during a thunderstorm.
1986 - Fire causes shutdown emergency at Fermi Nuclear Power Plant in Monroe.

August 7
1893 - Three people are killed in a Lakeshore and Southern Michigan train crash with a freight train near Lindsey. The passenger train was enroute to Chicago. Twenty-five others onboard are injured including two Chicago Colts baseball players.
1912 - It’s reported by Humane Society that over the past month there have been 54 reports of fathers and two mothers neglecting their children in Toledo.
1914 - TPD Patrolman Albert Schultz killed in line of duty after he and another officer responded to a burglary alarm call at Englewood Court and Grand Street. When Patrolman Schultz arrived at the scene he began to struggle with the suspect. The man produced a revolver and shot Patrolman Schultz in the head, killing him. Patrolman Schultz, a 7-year veteran was survived by a wife and son.
1923 - Thousands of people descend on Deshler to watch the passing of President Warren G. Harding's funeral train through that Ohio town to Washington, D.C.
1926 - A Waterville teenager, Army private Oliver Bliss, thought killed in an arsenal explosion, turns up on streets of Toledo with another soldier. Both are dazed and unsure how they got to Toledo from the Army arsenal in New Jersey.
1956 - Grove Patterson, nationally known Blade editor and author, dies. He is remembered as “Toledo’s Number One Citizen.”