This Week in Toledo History Week of 5/31/2021

By: 
Lou Hebert

May 30 - June 5
May 30
1904 - Sixteen boys at the Southeast Toledo School sew a "handsome" bed quilt and give it to the janitor at the school as a present.
1910 - Toledo population now reported to be at 168,490
1918 - It's revealed that a 14 year old boy, Ells G. Porterfield has enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is now serving his country.
1940 - Carleton "Carty" Finkbeiner, future mayor of Toledo is born.
1953 - The newly formed "mounted posse" of the Lucas County Sheriff's Department is formed. They have 20 men and horses.
1972 - Betty Mauk, the "Mother of Promenade Park" continues her tireless campaign to promote the new riverfront area of downtown Toledo. She is now offering French crepes for sale to those who venture to the foot of Madison Avenue to enjoy the park area.
1980 - President Jimmy Carter visits Toledo on a campaign stop.

May 31
1928 - Crowds gather outside Toledo Police Court where 26-year- old Stanley Hoppe of Elm Street is charged with murder of 7-year old Dorothy Szelagowski. She had been kidnapped from her bed and her body found a day later on the front porch of her Palmer Street home. Hoppe was tried and convicted and executed later that same year.
1935 - More reports surface that aviator Paul Redfern, married to Toledoan, Gertrude Hillabrand, may still be alive in the jungles of South America where he vanished on a solo flight to Brazil in 1927.
1939 - The aquarium at the Toledo Zoo opens and is billed as the "largest freshwater aquarium" in the world".
1960 - The Ohio Court of Appeals upholds conviction of a Toledo store owner Bert Kaplan for violating
the Sunday "blue laws" in Toledo by opening his Family Fair stores on Sunday.
1976 - Kip Boulis, a Perrysburg policeman, drowns while trying to rescue a man and his four children who had fallen from their boat in the Maumee River.

June 1
1931 - Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral, opens on Collingwood Avenue as the mother church of the Toledo Catholic Diocese.
1934 - Actor Jamie Farr is born in North Toledo as Jamiel Farrah.
1942 - A rare "tidal" wave washes over parts of the Southern Lake Erie shoreline near Cleveland. Several people are killed, and a Toledo is injured by the sudden wall of water.
1945 - Chicago and Southern Airways opens service at Toledo Airport providing links to cities in seven states.
1965 - Frank Dick selected as the new superintendent of Toledo Public Schools
1971 - Special ceremonies take place in Toledo as TARTA (Toledo Are Regional Transit Authority) takes over the operations of the long held city transit agency, the Community Traction Company.
1975 - The Poe Ditch Music festival is held at BGSU's Doyt Perry Stadium It would be the largest single day rock festival held in the area with more than 30,000 people attending to hear a lineup that included Richie Havens, Styx, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Pure Prairie League and Johnnie Winter.

June 2
1854 - East Toledo is hit by a sudden cholera outbreak. The death toll over the next week would reach at least 300 and thousands of other were stricken and made seriously ill.
1906 - Hundreds of rats are removed from under the intersection of Superior and Adams Street in downtown Toledo. There are so many burrows they had caused parts of the street to cave in.
1912 - Six women are rescued after a night on a sand bar in Maumee Bay where their sailboat ran aground
1965 - Five people are killed when their small plane plunges into Lake Erie near Port Clinton.

June 3
1919 - Striking workers from Toledo's Overland factory riot near the plant and on Lagrange Street. In the ensuing chaos and violence, two people are shot to death and 24 others wounded as Toledo Police opened fire to disperse the crowd.
1922 - More than 170,000 gallons of "medicinal wine" are confiscated by prohibition dry agents on the Sandusky wharf. No arrests are made.
1929- The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Toledo can finally abandon the Erie and Miami Canal, thus opening the way for its drainage and the construction of what would become the Anthony Wayne Trail along its path.
1939 - The Inverness Country Club plays host to 16 top pro golfers including Sammy Snead, Tommy Armour, and Gene Sarazen, for the third annual Inverness Invitational. It is said to be the biggest sporting event in Toledo since the Dempsey-Willard championship fight in 1919.

June 4
1888 - The Portage River catches fire in Oak Harbor which is laden with the upstream run-off of crude oil contamination from the oil fields of Wood County.
1909 - A summer rabies outbreak compels Toledo city officials to send squads of sharpshooters out into the streets and alleys to kill all dogs found running loose.
1910 - Monroe Michigan pays tribute to former resident, General George Armstrong Custer as his widow unveils a statue of the ill-fated Indian killer in downtown Monroe. The event draws a crowd of 10,000 including President William Howard Taft.
1915 - Home sites are being offered in the Auburn and Central Avenue area for Overland workers.
1933 - Upton Weirick, "The Corn Cob Pipe King of the West" dies at his home in Tiffin at the age of 85. He had retired to Seneca County after a long and colorful life in the Western U.S.

June 5
1859 - A surprise drop in temperature to 24 degrees kills many crops in their fields in Northwest Ohio.
1917 - Thousands of young men from Toledo are signing up for the draft as U.S. involvement in the European war looms large.
1922 - Home Furniture in Toledo is holding a baby carriage sale, with prices from $19.75 to $59.75
1929 - Three firemen are injured in a spectacular blaze in East Toledo at the Kasco Mills along the riverfront
1935 - A strike by Edison workers shuts down most of the city's power grid, idling factories, and closing many businesses in Toledo. Electric street cars are stopped and some radio stations knocked off the air. The strike would go on for another week with intermittent outages.

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