This week in Toledo history - July 12-18

July 12

1844: George Thompson is hanged in Fremont for the murder of 18-year-old Catherine Hamler, who had refused his marriage proposal.

1893: A fire destroys several blocks of homes and businesses in the Wood County town of Luckey.

1904: Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones, the popular reform mayor, dies of heart failure in Toledo. Businesses close, and the city is in deep mourning. His body lies in state at Memorial Hall as thousands line up to file past their beloved mayor.

1927: A freight train hits an Interurban passenger trolley at the Dorr Street terminal in Toledo. Three people are killed, and nine are injured.

July 13

1833: The first property transaction occurs in Toledo as John Baldwin buys a lot in the new town of Vistula for $25 at Monroe and Summit.

1901: A man by the name of R. Myers, long thought to have perished as a sailor in a Lake Erie shipwreck in 1886, returns home to find that his family had given him up for dead and his wife had remarried. Myers manages to find his daughter in Bowling Green, and they have an emotional reunion.

1905: The largest roller rink in Ohio is now nearing completion at Ashland and Bancroft, measuring 175 x 85 feet.

1926: The oldest man ever to be put in jail by Toledo police is arrested for the theft of a chicken from a market on Cherry Street. The 96-year-old man, James Hughes, says that at least in prison he’ll get regular meals.

1976: Visitors are coming to Genoa to check out the first “privy” that is on the National Historic Register. The century-old brick outhouse, sitting behind the former Camper Elementary School, was named this month to the elite register because of its Romanesque revival architecture.

July 14

1904: A double execution is held in Columbus for two brothers from Lucas County, Albert and Benjamin Wade, who were convicted in the 1900 robbery and murder of Kate Sullivan in rural western Lucas County. An hour before execution, Albert Wade accused his brother of the murder, as well as another murder near Findlay.

1936: It’s the hottest day on record in Northwest Ohio as Toledo reports 105 degrees. Bowling Green records 110 degrees. Some highways buckle under heat stress.

1951: The movie “Bedtime for Bonzo,” starring Ronald Reagan, is shown at the Park Theater at Sylvania and Lewis.

July 15

1849: Toledo's first cholera epidemic breaks out. In the next two weeks more than 100 people die, as it spreads to other nearby towns along the Maumee.

1892: Six Toledo city councilmen are convicted of taking bribes from area businesses. They are sentenced to $250 in fines.

1903: Eight Toledo boys are reported to have died from tetanus as a result of toy pistol and fireworks accidents over the July 4th weekend.

1969: The Princess Theater in downtown Toledo closes, leaving the Valentine and the Pantheon Theaters as the only remaining movie houses downtown.

1973: County executive Ned Skeldon makes his long-promised swim across the Maumee River after a substantial cleanup of the river. Hundreds watch him swim from Walbridge Park to Rossford.

1983: The start of a new era at Jeep is marked as the first X-J Jeep rolls off the assembly line at the Jeep Parkway plant.

July 16

1843: The last of the Wyandot Native Americans leave their Upper Sandusky tribal lands on an eventual “trail of tears” to a new reservation in Kansas.

1896: The Toledo Mud Hens play their first game as Mud Hens at Bay View Park outside of the city limits so they could play on Sundays. The team earns its nickname because Bay View was a marshy area populated by "American Coot" waterfowl, often called Mud Hens.

1917: Willys-Overland of Toledo joins forces with Curtiss Aircraft to build airplanes in the new Willys-Morrow plant in Elmira, N.Y.

1934: A trio of armed robbers steal $19,000 from the Page Dairy plant on Knapp Street in Toledo. Two of the bandits are believed to be wounded after the owner, Henry Page, opens fire on them with a shotgun he keeps in the office. The bandits were later captured near Monroe, Mich. a couple days later.

1936: A dedication concert at the new Toledo Zoo Amphitheater is held with the Toledo Civic Symphony, the forerunner to the Toledo Symphony. Toledo police inspector Charles Roth was the conductor.

1940: A fire sweeps through an upper floor attic of St. Vincent’s Hospital, forcing the evacuation of 142 patients. No injuries to patients were reported, but two Toledo firemen were overcome by smoke while battling the blaze.

1972: Joe Niekro pitches a seven-inning no-hitter for the Toledo Mud Hens at the team’s home ballpark in Maumee.

1972: Jacob “Firetop” Sulkin, the notorious mob killer, dies at his home in Toledo at age of 80. He had been in prison for many years and eventually released because of health issues.

July 17

1835: An angry mob of Michiganders storm the Toledo home of Ben Stickney to arrest his son “Two Stickney” in one of the first skirmishes of the Ohio-Michigan War.

1884: The first birth is reported at what would later become the Riverside Hospital. It was a boy.

1927: Albertus Brown, a prominent member of Toledo's black community and civil rights attorney, dies at his home at the age of 46.

1932: Three volunteer firemen from Adams Township are killed and 12 others are injured when their speeding fire truck is forced off Reynolds Road near Hill. The truck went into a deep ditch and rolled three times. The driver of the car that forced them off the road fled the scene.

1934: A “human wheelbarrow” of two Toledoans, Donald Taylor and William Robb, set out from New York City on the first ever cross-country trip of unusual human endurance. They arrived in California several months later.

July 18

1922: Veteran Toledo organ grinder Pete Pisto says his business is not what it used to be as kids these days are no longer entranced by his monkey. Now, they can go and see them at the zoo and parks.

1927: At Fort Miami Racetrack in Maumee, a “masked driver” is handcuffed to the wheel of a bus to begin a 144-hour endurance run to test the durability of the vehicle.

1929: Toledo zookeeper Charles Connor is attacked by a zebra. He suffers serious injuries, and the zoo takes steps to prevent other keepers from becoming trapped inside an animal pen in the event of an attack.

1955: The Toledo Port Authority is formed, the first port authority in the state.