This Week In Toledo History

December 31
1901- Casino Theater on Maumee Bay at Point Place burns to the ground.
1905 - Toledo Fire Department reports record breaking 700 fires in the city for the year.
1920 - Ohio ranked as third in production of oil in the nation behind Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Northwest Ohio has over 21,000 wells.
1925 - Excitement building in Point Place as hundreds prepare for the Ice Yacht Races on Maumee Bay. This year will see 14 new 200 foot racers on the ice. Most of the activity now taking place at King's Iceboat Club on the bay.
1949 - The last trolley car runs on the streets of Toledo as the Monroe Street long belt streetcar makes its final run. Hundreds line up to watch the trolley on its end-of-the-line trek through downtown Toledo

January 1
1860 - Temperatures in Toledo fall to 15 degrees below zero.
1897 - The new (and present) Lucas County Courthouse opens to the public.
1905 - Toledo's famous guardian of newsboys, John Gunckel finds an abandoned lad dressed in rags, hungry and crying on a downtown street. News reports say the boy was turned out in the cold by his mother to fend for himself.
1916 - Home rule charter begins for Toledo.
1923 - Six thousand fans fill the Terminal Auditorium to listen to the special radio broadcast from Corvallis, Oregon as the Scott High football team plays a championship game.
1935 - Economy is so bad; the Toledo News Bee refuses to wish Toledoans a Happy New Year.
1937 - Point Place is officially annexed to City of Toledo.

January 2
1910 - Toledo Policeman George Casey becomes first officer ever to arrest an entire police department when he takes the Perrysburg Marshal and a deputy into custody for fighting on an Interurban station platform.
1925 - Larry Weiss born in Toledo. He later changed his name to Larry Harmon and portrayed "Bozo the Clown", helping the character become an American icon.
1929 - East Toledo police are called to a home where a man said he needed to talk to his wife who she says forbade him to talk to her without a policeman present. The police did not divulge what the husband told her.
1930 - Current Toledo Hospital building opens for patient admissions.
1938 - Toledo's Phyllis Welch joins movie legend and producer Harold Lloyd to co-star in "Professor Beware". Welch enjoyed a short but popular Hollywood career. She passed away in 2008 at age 96.
1953 - Nine inmates escape from the Lucas County jail after sawing their way through a barred window and dropping to the ground. Sheriff Timiney says he suspects an "inside" job.

January 3
1894 - Quayle Grain elevator burns to the ground in Toledo at present site of Promenade Park at Madison and Water Streets. Toledo Fire Captain James Fraser is killed. His body is never recovered.
1910 - Sheriff Newton of Lucas County says he is removing apricots from the menu of the inmates at the jail. He says some of the inmates figured out how to distill the apricots juice into an alcoholic drink and they were getting too “frisky”.
1920 - As part of nationwide crackdown on communists, Toledo police and federal agents raid the local Communist Labor Party headquarters at Front and Consaul Street. They arrest 13 immigrants from Hungary alleged to be "Reds" and are subject to deportment.

January 4
1887 - Major train wreck near Republic in Seneca County. Twenty people killed, three coach cars are burned in the pileup. The deadliest rail crash in Northwest Ohio.
1913 - The Orpheum Theater on Superior Street is featuring a silent film about Toledo. Audiences are said to be thrilled to see Toledo, Day by Day, a film that shows many scenes of the city, its buildings, factories and residents.
1950 - City of Toledo council members consider an end to garbage incineration in favor of burying garbage in landfills.

January 5
1894 - Toledo Hospital reports that it had 239 patients in 1893, 71 operations were performed and there were 25 deaths.
1920 - An explosion at the National Refrigeration Company factory on Nebraska Avenue in Toledo kills two workers.

1936 - Toledo area experiences two major fires in one day. Fire does heavy damage to the mansion of Toledo industrialist George Mather on River Road. The second major fire was the landmark Toledo Coliseum at Bancroft and Ashland.
1946 - Wood County Sheriff Clarence Marsh says the owners of the El Rancho Ballroom, an illegal casino on Woodville Road, offered him tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to reopen the club.
1948 - Ten children are killed in a horrific accident near Archbold when a tractor-drawn sleigh is run over by a fast-moving train.
1955 - Toledo Express Airport's official opening day is marked by cancellation of all flights because of bad weather.

January 6
1905 - A formal protest is lodged against the Toledo Zoo by the Ancient Order of Hibernians objecting to the name of a monkey at the zoo. They say its name “Mrs. Murphy” is an insult to the Irish. The zoo says it will change the name.
1912 - Amos Jacobs, later to become Toledo’s Danny Thomas, is born to immigrant parents in Deerfield, Michigan. They later moved to North Toledo where Danny spent much of his early life, before moving on to stardom in the entertainment world.
1937 - The Ohio Highway Department announces it will begin the paving of “Canal Boulevard” or what would later become the Anthony Wayne Trail from Toledo to Waterville.
1946 - Huge fire levels the Hobart Dry Goods store in Pemberville.
1955 -Toledo Express Airport opens for air traffic.
1972 - Gangster Thomas “Yonnie” Licavoli is paroled from prison after serving 38 years for notorious mob slayings in Toledo.