This Week In Toledo History Week of 9/6/2021
Sept. 5-11
Sept. 5
1865 - Wooden span of the Cherry Street Bridge is opened to traffic with a new drawbridge.
1897 - First “horseless carriage” appears on an Elmore, Ohio street.
1900 - Toledo's most famous racing trotter, Cresceus, breaks the world record for the mile in Hartford Connecticut at Charter Oak race track. His time was 2:04 and 3/4. The big stallion is owned and raced by George Ketcham of Toledo.
1922 - Oakdale Elementary School opens its doors for students.
1954 - It’s discovered that an unknown Navy pilot dropped practice bombs on top of Toledo's water intake crib in Lake Erie, damaging the roof.
1958 - “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is playing at the Valentine Theater; “The Naked and the Dead” is playing at Pantheon Theater; and Rita Grable is headlining at the Town Hall Burlesque.
Sept. 6
1885 - Popular actor of the 1930s and 40s, Otto Kruger, is born in Toledo. Ironically, 89 years later in 1974, on his birthday, Kruger died.
1917 - More Toledoans respond to the call of war duty. Hundreds of young Toledo men head for boot camp at Chillicothe, while 16 women, Toledo Red Cross nurses, also leave today. Sworn into service at the Secor Hotel, they were given a send-off party. They'll head to a New York hospital for training and then are to join Pershing's forces near the front lines in France.
1922 – Police detective William Martin shot and killed by car theft suspects in Fulton Garage at 302 Prescott Street. His partner, Detective George Bach, is wounded.
1924 - Toledo Patrolman Arthur Brown is being praised for his efforts to clean up the remnants of the old Tenderloin district near between Swan Creek and Monroe Street. He has made 184 arrests in a little over a month, with crimes ranging from drunk and disorderly to assault. "Brownie", as he is called, even lost part of a finger when bitten off by a suspect.
1945 - Within a month after the Japanese surrender in World War II, the Navy discharges the first sailors through the Toledo Naval Separation Center at the Naval Armory Building at Bay View Park.
Sept. 7
1876 - Town of Freeport in Wood County is incorporated, later to be renamed "Prairie Depot" and then renamed "Wayne."
1887 - Downtown Toledo holds huge public celebration to usher in the natural gas boom and the promise it brings for the area’s future. Thousands attend the event, including former President Rutherford B. Hayes.
1907 - Milner Department Store offering an oak dresser for $5.48 and oak rockers for $2.49.
1929 - Wabash Railroad offering round trip tickets from Toledo to St. Louis for $16.50.
1937 - A Woodville bank is robbed of over $1,800 by a lone bandit armed with a sawed off shotgun. He entered the bank and ordered the tellers and customers to lie on the floor while he rifled the cash drawers and a safe and then the fled into a black Chevy coupe.
Sept. 8
1897 - Six workers are killed in the Grant Oil Well explosion in Cygnet in Wood County as workers were pouring nitroglycerin into the well.
1913 - Irene Hill becomes first African-American to teach in Toledo Public Schools, assigned to Erie School in North Toledo. She would teach another 36 years at TPS before retiring in 1949.
1916 - Opening of Toledo Public Schools delayed because of epidemic of infantile paralysis.
1925 - A polar bear at Toledo Zoo dies from arsenic poison. It's the second bear and fourth zoo animal to die from poisoning in recent weeks. Police are looking for a suspect.
1938 - Big fire at Willys Overland factory in Toledo and 14 brick buildings are destroyed.
1941 - Toledo Police graduate their 3rd class from the newly formed Police Academy
1963 - The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie is observed at Put-in-Bay with over 3,000 people attending the ceremony including relatives of Oliver Hazard Perry.
Sept. 9
1876 - The Wood County village of Pemberville holds first town council meeting.
1911 - A major fire in North Baltimore in Wood County destroys several downtown buildings.
1922 - Thousands attend ceremonies as Toledo celebrates the first Peter Navarre Day. The pioneer's cabin is moved to Navarre Park in East Toledo where it remained for years until it was moved to the zoo.
1962 - Jacquelyn Mayer of Sandusky crowned Miss America in Atlantic City.
1980 - The steeple on top of the historic St. Patrick Catholic Church in downtown Toledo struck by lightning, setting the large iron cross ablaze. The fire is visible throughout downtown.
1983 - Hundreds of abandoned graves from the "Sunshine" cemetery are discovered at the old Toledo State Hospital. They are unearthed by contractors putting in sewer project near the Medical College of Ohio.
Sept. 10
1813 - Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British in the Battle of Lake Erie, fought near Put-in-Bay at South Bass Island.
1892 - World’s largest puffball found on the Sarnes' farm at Elmore, Ohio and is to be shown at World’s Fair.
1905 - Toledo School Board member Pauline Steinem (grandmother of Gloria Steinem and first woman to hold public office in Toledo) says Toledo's kindergarten classes are "laughing stock" of the state because Toledo does not require teachers of that grade to undergo any training.
1909 - The world’s first “fat man’s convention” is held at Put-in-Bay, drawing national attention.
1946 - Extreme meat shortage across the nation has closed meat markets and butcher shops in Toledo area and other cities nationwide.
Sept. 11
1852 - Toledo teacher salaries reported to be about $20 to $25 per month.
1905 - Toledo police say the notorious Loretta French has been arrested again for running a brothel on Lafayette Street in the Tenderloin district. She and four other women were picked up at the "resort." Loretta French says she wants a jury trial.
1929 - A 22-year-old Toledo man arrested in Philadelphia with a large cache of dynamite. Police say he planned to blow up a church in that city.
1926 - The Lion Store garage on Madison Avenue in Toledo is destroyed by fire, including 22 delivery trucks, nine of which are fully loaded with dry goods.
1930 - Toledo City Council votes to rid downtown Toledo of wood block paving by resurfacing Jefferson and Jackson Streets and getting rid of the wood pavers that had been installed in the 1870s. Many wood block streets remained in the Old West End through the 1940s.
1953 - Toledo police morals squad cracks down on pinball machine “gambling.”
2001 - United States suffers a major terror strike as four hijacked jetliners crash in locations in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people are killed in the attack. Many of the deaths occur at the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Toledo reacts with horror and shock as the world stops and watches the tragic events unfold on television.