Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
July 26
1877: A national train strike begins. Toledo streets are patrolled by citizens trying to avert any mob violence in the streets.
1899: A million-dollar grain elevator fire erupts in East Toledo along the riverfront as 900,000 bushels of grain are destroyed.
1901: Toledo officials determine they have found the oldest buildings in the city. The oldest wooden cottage is on Lagrange Street next to the Lagrange Street School, built in the 1830s. The oldest brick building is located at Summit and Cherry in the form of Newcomer Drugs. It is estimated to have been built in 1831.
1932: James Leiby, an 81-year-old vagrant who wandered the roadways of the U.S. for decades, dies in Toledo. Hospital attendants found that he had $6,900 in cash pinned beneath his heavy clothes.
1941: The “unsafe” steel highway bridge over the Maumee River in Waterville collapses, sending a milk truck into the waters below. The driver and helper receive minor injuries. Local residents had been warning the state for years about the old span.
July 27
1882: A major fire breaks out at the Columbus and Toledo railroad depot in Walbridge, destroying the depot building and one of the largest barrel stave factories in the state of Ohio.
1887: TA natural gas standpipe at the Cherry Street Bridge is opened amid great celebration as giant flames are ignited, heralding a new era of “cheap gas” and an economic boom.
1897: “Old Klondike,” Toledo’s first oil well, hits a small gusher on Millard Avenue in East Toledo. It flowed so hard that men were paid a dollar a day to help build a dike around it to contain the oil. It continued producing oil for decades.
1927: Toledo dry agents discover 15,000 bottles of bootlegged Canadian ale in a boxcar in the Pennsylvania rail yards and empty them into the Maumee River.
1936: A brawl between several local toughs and 13 Toledo police officers breaks out at the Speedway Inn in the 3100 block of Lagrange.
1945: Three teenage boys from the area are killed in Rocky Ridge when their farm truck was hit by a fast-moving eastbound New York Central train. The boys, ages 12, 13 and 16, had just delivered a load of wheat to the elevator and were returning home when they were hit by the train.
1972: Toledo’s most famous “stripper” and Town Hall burlesque theater owner, Rose La Rose, dies of cancer at the age of 59. Many Toledo residents and others from the world of show business attend her funeral.
July 28
1878: A scandal has been revealed in Elmore after coroners in Toledo have determined that Dr. John Lucky of Elmore performed an illegal abortion operation for a young woman, and she died soon after. It’s being recommended that Dr. Lucky be charged in the case, as well as a man from Kenton who arranged the operation at the Island House Hotel in Toledo.
1934: Richard Rosenthal, a 24-year-old race car driver, is killed at the Fort Miami racetrack in Maumee. The young driver died when his Dusenberg slammed into a fence as spectators watched in horror.
1936: Toledo police detective Mary Young says the Depression era has prompted many fortune tellers to go into business in Toledo to give economy-worried residents predictions about their futures. She says fortune tellers, numerologists and spiritual mediums are not in short supply. One of her jobs is to track them and keep them from offering phony predictions.
1938: East Toledo funeral director James Clegg is on his way by airplane to Baltimore to donate his blood to a woman severely ill from a strep infection. Clegg has a rare blood type and has donated his blood before to save people who require the blood type. Doctors in Baltimore had put out an urgent request for the blood and Clegg heard the story on WTOL radio. He was then able to get in touch with the doctors in Maryland.
1945: One hundred thousand people in Toledo line the riverfront to see a spectacular mock battle as 1,000 marines and 40 Navy planes storm the beach at Riverside Park. They performed the aerial display to demonstrate what American troops face in the war. There were flame throwers in use and numerous dynamite charges. More than 20 bystanders were hurt by debris from the exploding charges.
1948: Toledo men, Robert Bauman and John Riddle, win their second-straight Fort Wayne to Toledo canoe race on the Maumee River for the annual Aquarama Fest. Total time for the 135-mile journey was 25 hours and 38 minutes.
July 29
1891: An explosion occurs at a sawmill in Cummings, Ohio, which is now a ghost town near Moline in Wood County. Four men are killed.
1915: BGSU, then Bowling Green Normal School, holds its first commencement at a downtown Bowling Green theater.
1927: A Genoa family escapes what could have been a deadly accident when their car is hit by a train. Mr. and Mrs. Fondessy, 30 and 29, and their eight-month-old baby were crossing the tracks at Clay Center when their car was “ground to bits” by a New York Central train. Somehow, they managed to escape with only bruises, although workmen had to dig for over an hour to get them free from the mangled wreckage.
1940: An arson-caused fire destroys the historic Horton Hall in Perrysburg’s downtown. The massive home of architectural merit was built in 1823 and believed to have hosted many important guests, including President William Henry Harrison and Daniel Webster.
1958: Pennsylvania Railroad says it will be shutting down three of its passenger routes out of Toledo to Pittsburgh, leaving only one passenger train a day.
July 30
1918: The lion “Cleopatra” escapes from her cage at Cedar Point. Visitors are in a panic before the big lion is recaptured.
1924: The people of Ottawa Hills voted 58-37 to incorporate and form a village.
1958: The passenger cruise ship Canadiana smashes into the Toledo Terminal Railroad bridge while returning from Bob-Lo Island. Two people are injured.
1959: Work begins in downtown Toledo on the much talked about “downtown mall” on Adams Street.
1968: Developers outline plans for the $30 million Franklin Park Mall in West Toledo with Penney’s, Lamson’s and Hudson's as the mall’s anchor stores.
1983: Worldwide Auto Sales on Sylvania Avenue explodes and burns. Millions of dollars in damage is reported.
July 31
1923: The first female lawyer in Ohio, 80-year-old Annette “Nettie” Cronise Lutes, dies at her home in Tiffin. The Seneca County native first gained admission to the Ohio Bar in 1873.
1931: A formal dedication ceremony is held at Perry’s Monument on Put-in-Bay. An NBC radio network carries the ceremony live.
1938: A train collision in Ottawa County occurs when an 80 mile per hour Cleveland bound N.Y.C. Mercury sideswipes a car at the Bensch Road crossing near Rocky Ridge. It is then hit by an eastbound passenger train, the Vanderbilt, a few minutes later. More than 30 people aboard the trains are injured.
1963: One of the worst highway tragedies in state history occurs when 10 members of the Felix Campos family are killed. Their station wagon, en route to the Woodville Drive-in, was hit head on by a semi-truck as they attempted to pass a car near Genoa on Route 51.
Aug. 1
1813: British troops begin a two-day assault on Fort Stephenson in Fremont in the War of 1812. The fort’s occupants, though out-numbered and out-gunned, were not outsmarted. Thanks to the clever work of the soldiers and an old cannon named “Betsy” they managed to fool the British troops and force them to retreat.
1885: The Soldiers Monument is unveiled at Fort Stephenson Park in Fremont.
1915: The Ohio Oil Company is formed to produce petroleum products from all the oil that is being pumped out of Northwest Ohio.
1916: A camel given to the city of Toledo 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: It’s a tragic day on Toledo streets for the city’s police department, when patrolman William Kress is killed while trying to arrest a man with a gun on State Street. He left behind a wife and six-year-old daughter. He died on his third anniversary of wearing a TPD badge.
1928: A massive explosion on Spencer Street destroys three industrial businesses and injures two men.
1928: An angry farmer shoots and wounds two caddies at Toledo's Heather Downs Golf Course who were hunting for lost balls in his wheat field adjoining the course. Farmer William Sharples is taken into custody and charged with assault.
1929: A riot cuts short the carnival at Front and Consaul Streets when a Waite High School footballer took exception to being called a “rube” by a carnival worker. A fight ensued and then more than 100 carnival workers and fellow Waite supporters began brawling. Several injuries were reported.
1965: A plane crash near Woodville kills four people. The two couples from Cleveland were returning home from Iowa when the single engine plane reportedly exploded over Route 20.
