Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
March 29
1902: Tontogany farmer W.T. Van Valenburg sends townsfolk on a treasure hunt after he says he lost his wallet in the fields around town. It contained $300 in cash.
1908: Police patrolman Patrick Sweeney of Tiffin is killed in a gun battle with a burglar. The suspect is identified as Butch Huffman, and police have been searching the area for the young killer.
1956: Middleweight boxer Wilbert "Skeeter" McClure of Toledo earns a spot to compete in the Pan American games in September.
1956: Toledo Police are embroiled in a scandal after it was revealed that police had injected a "truth serum" into a stabbing suspect they were interrogating. Investigators say they had approval from superiors, but superiors deny those claims. Lawyers for the suspect say his constitutional rights were violated.
March 30
1900: It's reported that 96-year-old Stephen Wood of Toledo has taken out a marriage license to wed 50-year-old Martha Lindsay in Toledo. He has outlived three other wives during his long life, but at 96, he says he wants his fourth wedding to take place without delay.
1915: Prohibitionists in Walbridge win a victory to keep Walbridge as a dry town. The vote was 66-44 and Walbridge joins Bowling Green, Perrysburg, and Grand Rapids in outlawing liquor sales. North Baltimore and Pemberville have voted to remain “wet.”
1919: Mobs spill into the street and clash with police during riots in downtown Toledo as thousands of supporters of Eugene Debs storm Memorial Hall where the socialist leader was not permitted to speak because of his political views. At least 70 people are arrested in the melee.
1921: Several Toledo businessmen at a store on Ontario Street are able to tune in and listen to a live concert from Pittsburgh on a wireless telephone (radio). The News Bee suggests that these new contraptions just might become popular some day in the future.
1945: Reports from South Bass Island indicate that the constant testing of heavy guns and artillery at the Erie Proving Grounds near Port Clinton is putting cracks in the towering Perry's Monument.
March 31
1892: A lynch mob of 1,000 in Hancock County break into the jail and abduct a man by the name of Joseph Lytle, who was being held for allegations of murdering his wife and daughter with an ax. The mob dragged Lytle outside and lynched him from a bridge span and then pulled his body down and hung him again from a telegraph pole and riddled his body with bullets.
1904: Major vandalism is reported at Toledo High School on Michigan when custodians find electric wires cut, bulbs broken, and door locks jammed.
1949: Pinball machine cash payouts are now banned in the city. The machines, say city prosecutors, can only be used for personal amusement and not for gambling.
1973: Opera singer Patrice Munsel, in Toledo to perform at the Masonic Auditorium, is reunited with her pet boa constrictor “George" after she left the big snake in her Lansing hotel room earlier in the week.
April 1
1885: The natural gas fever in Northwest Ohio continues as four drillers strike a pocket of natural gas within the city limits of Bowling Green.
1903: Ground is broken in Elmore for the Toledo-Port Clinton Lakeside Railroad Station, the first Interurban passenger and freight line to run eastward from Toledo.
1918: Toledo policeman Louis Jazwiecki dies after being shot the previous night at Erie and Walnut Streets as he was attempting to arrest two men.
1969: City bulldozers roll down the 1100 block of Upton Avenue to the home of minister Cassius Hettinger to destroy his iconic "Garden of Eden" display in his yard. He had created the menagerie of statues over the years using concrete and seashells. The many displays depicting scenes from the Bible had become a tourist attraction for some, a curiosity for others, and for some an eyesore. It had hosted busloads of weekend tourists for decades.
April 2
1904: The city of Toledo’s chemist has determined that Will Rader of Toledo died as a result of using shoe polish. Lab research shows that Rader used a shoe polish containing nitro benzol on the top of his shoes, and the toxic chemical penetrated the shoe and his skin. Thus, he died of poisoning.
1908: The new stone Interurban bridge over the Maumee River at Roche De Boeuf is nearing completion. The arched span (which still stands today) was a flash point of controversy when it was built because its construction required partial removal of the famous and historic Roche De Boeuf outcropping in the middle of the Maumee.
1920: Tiedtke's Department store says it plans to sell around 1,000 bunnies for Easter this year.
1943: The Toledo Rockets basketball team loses the NIT championship to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden in a humiliating 48-27 blowout.
1977: Kenny Rogers’ hit song "Lucille," which was written by Hal Bynum as he sat in a "bar room in Toledo," reaches number one on the record charts. The bar room was supposedly the Country Palace bar on Jefferson, and the "depot," as mentioned in the song, was the bus station up the street.
1997: Toledo scientist and visionary, Lyman Spitzer Jr., passes away at the age of 82. He is best known as the man who envisioned the Hubble Space Telescope and oversaw the project.
April 3
1916: Toledo police say the mystery deepens into the death of East Toledoan Gisto Ragizo. His body was recently found in the river, but now the coroner says he has found a bullet in the head of the corpse.
1924: Canton Avenue druggist Myron Selzman and three clerks are arrested on manslaughter charges in the deaths of 18 Toledo men who died a week after Selzman sold them poisoned alcohol (ethanol) or "canned heat," which they drank. It was a tragic and common practice by alcoholics during prohibition who could not buy booze from regular sources. Selzman was later sentenced to four years in prison.
1957: Tragedy visits the Fort Miami Racetrack in Maumee (now the fairgrounds) when fire and smoke snuff out the lives of 27 racehorses.
1984: The last edition of the once popular East Toledo Sun is published.
April 4
1915: The Niagara Hotel at the 300 block of Summit Street is destroyed by flames in a deadly fire that claimed the lives of newlyweds who were on their honeymoon. A Toledo fireman was also severely injured and suffered permanent injuries to his leg. The Niagara was later rebuilt as the Waldorf Hotel.
1919: A Toledo parade of thousands turns out to welcome home the more than 1,500 soldiers who had been serving in the trenches of Europe in World War I.
1920: Safecrackers break into the safe at Grace Smith’s cafeteria in downtown Toledo, getting away with $1,000 in cash.
1930: Edward Tilton, a teenage burglary suspect in Toledo, was held in the county jail and reunited with his long-lost mother who came to his aid after she abandoned him in 1915 when he was just three years old. Tilton said he had been told she had died.
1932: Reports are surfacing once again on Lake Erie of a phantom boat called the Fellowcraft. Known to most as the “Gray Ghost,” it was a bootlegger's boat that vanished on a cold blustery day in the winter of 1926-27 after setting out of Ontario with a load of rum. Every year since, this restless spirit of the lake provides some fishermen with a fleeting glimpse and a tale to tell. The latest sighting came from Pelee Island on a heading to Put-in Bay. Two years ago, two men were found dead, frozen near Sandusky Bay and some believe it to be the crew of the Fellowcraft, but sightings stubbornly persist of its ghostly meanderings.
1955: Future film TV actor Casey Biggs is born in Toledo. A graduate of Central Catholic High School in Toledo and Julliard School in New York, Biggs is probably best known for his role of Damar in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. He has appeared in numerous movies and TV series.
