This Week In Toledo History

February 4-10

February 4
1898 - Toledo Mayor Samuel Jones orders crackdown on Sunday laws, decreeing all saloons and stores close, plus a ban on Sunday paper delivery, and the arrest of concert-goers at Valentine Theater.
1901 - Masonic Temple in downtown Toledo burns in dramatic blaze.
1929 - William and Henry Bruns of Woodville are recognized as nation’s oldest twins at 95 years of age.
1933 - Two Toledo sisters who were shot and wounded while stealing food from a Dorr Street grocery are set free by the judge in the case. The sisters say they were stealing food to feed their children.
1951 - A DuMont 17-inch television set is being sold for $495 at LaSalle’s.

February 5
1907 - Toledo Yacht Club at Bay View Park burns to the ground. There were no injuries but thousands of dollars in artwork, trophies, paintings and other equipment and memorabilia is lost.
1912 - Nicholas Deeter, 70, of Toledo collapses and dies moments after helping his wife wring out the clothes while doing laundry. The wife said he was not accustomed to working that hard.
1927 - Two people are killed in an explosion at First Congregational Church in Toledo. A gas leak is blamed for the cause, $150,000 in damaged incurred.
1930 - The Farmers and Merchants Bank in Sylvania is robbed by gun-toting bandits of more than $2,000. One of those bandits is the notorious "Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. He is later caught and convicted of the robbery, but escapes on his way to the Ohio Penitentiary.
1954 - Toledo school board raises starting teachers’ salaries to $3,400 per year.

February 6
1884 - A large portion of the Perrysburg-Maumee Bridge is swept away by flood waters.
1888 - Industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey signs contract to move his glass making company and hundreds of workers from Boston to Toledo.
1906 - Toledo schools begin plans to open new school on Saint Clair Street for unruly and incorrigible students.
1970 - More than 100 Toledo police officers stage a “blue flu” work stoppage to protest what they say is a cut in vacation bonuses.
1991 - Toledo’s Danny Thomas (Amos Jacobs), comedian, actor, and singer, dies of heart attack at age of 79.

February 7
1917 - Alvin Czelusta is shot through the heart at the Marleau restaurant in East Toledo by the owner, Evelyn Marleau, because he called her a “vile” name.
1931 - The Lucas County Coroner exonerates a Toledo man who shot and killed a "Peeping Tom" who was looking through the windows of his home. Ruled as justifiable because the victim had a prison record in Canada.
1933 - Tiedtke’s department store is selling fresh “bullhead” fish for 18 cents a pound and fresh sirloin steak for 12 cents a pound.
1941 - Department of War orders 1,500 “jeeps” to be built at the Willys-Overland plant.

February 8
1919 - Hundreds of Toledo soldiers from the 329th Regiment return from France after World War I. Thousands of Toledoans gather at the tracks on Cherry Street to greet the homecoming train.
1922 - KKK reorganizes in Toledo; group decides to be called the Krusaders. Three hundred men attend first meeting at Iota Hall.
1937 - Toledo police arrest the last member of what they call the Baby Dillinger Gang, which had been terrorizing and robbing stores in the Toledo area.
1949 - Plans are being made to greet the Ohio boxcar of the French “Merci” Train in Toledo. The train was sent by France to the United States, to say thank you for helping the French rebuild after World War II.

February 9
1945 - Lt. Jacob Chandler of Toledo is killed in action while serving in Italy during World War II. Chandler had been a Toledo policeman before the war and was the only TPD officer killed while serving in wartime. He is buried at the American cemetery near Florence Italy.
1962 - Robert Stranahan, founder of Toledo’s Champion Spark Plug Company, dies at his West Central Avenue home at the age of 75. Stranahan and his brother Frank started the company in Boston in 1908 and two years later moved the operations to Toledo.
1963 - Toledo Sports Center on Starr Avenue destroyed by fire.

February 10
1921 - A two-week-old baby girl found in a basket on a doorstep in 3100 block of Kimball Avenue in Toledo. The baby was apparently born in a Detroit hospital before being abandoned.
1929 - Toledo police arrest 42 people in series of raids for bootlegging and gambling.
1931 - Classes open for the first time at the new University Hall on the new UT campus on Bancroft.
1933 - A massive fire destroys the popular Vita Temple Theater on St. Clair Street in downtown Toledo. The building, constructed in 1862, had originally been a church, then converted to a dance hall and roller rink before becoming home to the theater in 1929.