Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Aug. 10
1894: The first story of the Wood County courthouse is completed.
1905: The “Pope-Toledo” automobile is selling nationwide for $3,500. It is called the “quiet mile-a-minute car.”
1927: Aviation hero Charles Lindberg performs a low altitude flyover of a ballgame at Armory Park in Toledo. He drops a message of goodwill to the spectators below.
1933: Well-known area racketeer and underworld figure, Jacob “Firetop” Sulkin, is indicted for the murder of Toledo-area bootlegger Jackie Kennedy in Point Place.
1964: School lunches in the area are going to increase to 35 cents.
Aug. 11
1853: Cornerstone is laid at Adams and Michigan for what would become Toledo’s first high school building.
1905: Toledo police continue their investigation of the drowning of three young women in the Maumee River near Walbridge Park. The deaths came in separate incidents within a few days of each other. In one case the girl was thought to be a suicide, but some family members are not convinced and say a former boyfriend had been threatening to harm her.
1911: Bishop Joseph Schrembs is appointed as the first Bishop for the Toledo Catholic Diocese.
1916: A tribe of Iroquois Americans is presenting Longfellow's “Hiawatha” at Jermain Park. The cast of 50 players has a “set” made up of tepees, campfires and birch bark canoes along the Ottawa River as the classic story is played out to large audiences. While they were in Toledo digging a post hole, they discovered an “Indian” skull and bones in Jermain Park.
1923: The Toledo police department gets six new “speed” cars, three Cadillacs and three large Studebakers for their fleet. The vehicles can reach speeds of up to 60-miles-per-hour.
1932: Rookie Toledo police patrolman 28-year-old Edward Keim is shot and killed during a shootout with a robbery suspect at a gas station on Indiana Avenue. Responding fellow officers shoot and kill the suspect. Keim, a former boxer, had been on the department about a month.
1966: B & O passenger train service to Bowling Green and other points south is discontinued.
1986: Bob Tway wins the PGA at Toledo’s Inverness Club event with a dramatic chip-in on No. 18.
Aug. 12
1908: A Toledo courtroom is shocked when police bring in a bandaged and dying woman, Bertha Hood, to testify against a man, Eddie Simpson, who she claims stabbed her repeatedly. She was so weak she couldn’t hold up her hand to take the oath.
1916: The last horse is retired from the Toledo fire department which is now completely motorized.
1918: Overnight garbage collection is ordered for downtown Toledo because garbage wagons were too smelly for daytime use.
1921: President Harding’s 76-year-old father, Dr. George Harding, spends his wedding night at Secor Hotel in Toledo after marrying a 52 -year-old nurse in Monroe, Mich.
1949: An arctic fox escapes from its cage at Toledo Zoo, leading zoo workers on a chase through South Toledo Streets.
1961: Count Basie plays for a special opening at the Hines Farm Blues Club near Swanton.
Aug. 13
1900: Former Union Army General and reconstruction governor of South Carolina, Robert Kingston Scott, dies at his home in Napoleon.
1919: The Walbridge Park pavilion burns to the ground. Two people living at the business are saved by their barking dog.
1922: Toledo patrolman Fritz Bacon is killed on duty after he was hit by drunk driver.
1926: Toledo Edison workers find old wooden paving blocks eight feet below street level at Superior and Jackson Streets. Wooden blocks had been used for paving in the 1880s.
1930: A local farmer on Pickle Road in Oregon shoots and kills a destitute father and son because they were stealing potatoes from his field. The farmer is acquitted in the killings.
1938: Lt. Leonard Guerin of the Trilby fire department is killed while battling a gasoline tanker explosion.
Aug. 14
1919: The large and historic Hotel Victory at Put-in-Bay burns to the ground in a spectacular blaze that can be seen from Toledo.
1922: Ten-thousand people crowd Toledo beach to cool off in high heat.
1927: Three people drown when squalls hit Lake Erie near Willow Beach at Port Clinton.
1945: Downtown Toledo streets are flooded with over 100,000 people in an official and rowdy celebration to mark news that the Japan has surrendered, ending World War II.
1998: Wayne, Ohio native Chris Hoiles of the Baltimore Orioles hits two grand slams in one game against the Cleveland Indians.
Aug. 15
1834: The Toledo Herald is published by Mr. James Irvine Brown, the first newspaper in Toledo. It is also reported that Brown first suggested the name of Toledo for this new community on the banks of the Maumee River.
1888: The first glass factory begins operation in Tiffin, Ohio.
1941: Nationally famous exotic snake dancer, Zorita, is arrested by the Toledo morals squad at the Kentucky Club on North Detroit Avenue. She was released the next day on $200 bond.
1949: A Grand Rapids man trying out for a crop duster pilot’s job is killed near Bloomdale when his plane hits a tree.
1976: Olympic track team member, Toledoan Brenda Morehead, is honored with a parade in downtown Toledo.
1980: St. Vincent Hospital initiates Life Flight medical rescue helicopter service in northwest Ohio.
Aug. 16
1841: Steamboat “Toledo” is launched. It was later renamed the “Indiana” before burning to the water's edge at port in Conneaut, Ohio in 1848. It was thought to be the work of arsonists.
1864: Toledo City Council gives the city marshal authority to deputize men to serve as night and day policemen.
1881: Bairdstown in Southern Wood County is incorporated.
1915: John Gunckel, the father of the “Toledo Newsboys” and “National Newsboys,” dies at his Toledo home after a long illness. A pyramid made of stones marks his burial place at Woodlawn Cemetery, where for many years Toledo children would pay tribute to the beloved Gunckel on the anniversary of his death.
1920: A cloudburst sends 4.5 inches of rain into streets, triggering major floods and damage in the city of Toledo and surrounding area.
1934: An 18-year-old girl, Florence Brushaber of Sandusky, attempts to swim across Lake Erie from the Canadian side to the American shore. Her attempt fell short when she became numb and sick before being pulled from the dark waters of the lake.
1936: Two teenagers and a pilot are killed in a light plane crash near Wayne, Ohio in a Wood County field where the town’s centennial celebrations are underway.
1948: A steel cable barge with 30 passengers near Waterville sinks into Maumee. Three people drown.
