This Week in History Week of 6/7/2021

June 6 - 12
June 6
1901 - The Elks Carnival in Findlay is under fire from local citizens for featuring a "cootchee cootchee" dance show. Church people have filed a formal petition with two judges calling it an immoral nuisance but the judges refused to intervene. The church people vow to tear down the tent and throw it into the Blanchard River.
1906 - In the wake of novelist Upton Sinclair's scandalous revelations contained in his novel, "The Jungle", Toledo Mayor Brand Whitlock orders health officers in the city to begin inspections of all Toledo meat packing facilities.
1921 - Trial gets underway in Toledo's Federal Court for members of the Joe Urbaytis gang, accused of robbing more than a million dollars in the Toledo Post Office heist in February.
1937 - The Toledo News Bee reports that about 100,000 people jammed the Toledo Municipal Airport in Lake Township for a major air show featuring a "bat wing" skydiver and other acrobatic stunt pilots.
1962 - Fremont Judge John Bronson makes national news for paddling young boys in his courtroom.

June 7
1905 - Barnum and Bailey Circus comes to town. After a rain delay, they hurriedly pitch the big tent at Hawley and Dorr Street to offer three rings of action, using three herds of elephants and over 500 horses.
1913 - An ice famine is underway in the city as ice handlers go on strike because employers refuse to bargain. Resident are now forced, under the threat of possible violence, to go to the ice house themselves to pick up their own blocks of ice.
1938 - Revelations surface that union "thugs" have been beating and attacking workers who don't want to join the union at the Pure Oil Refinery in Toledo, prompting official investigations.
1971 - A grisly find for Toledo Police as they are called to a West Toledo duplex and find four bodies, bound together. All had been killed in an execution style slaying in what police suspect was drug related.
1983 - The last Toledo City Council meeting is held in the Safety Building after almost 50 years. Council moved to new chambers and offices in the city-state office tower across Erie street.

June 8
1876 - The village of Pemberville is officially formed.
1902 - Residents at Miami and Brown Road say a band of gypsies camping in the area is causing big problems with noise and trouble making. In one case a man on a small horse rode into several saloons brandishing a pistol demanding drinks. Women in the neighborhood are said to be frightened and in near hysterics.
1903 - The Toledo Bee and the Toledo News merge to become the Toledo News Bee with a combined circulation of 44,000 subscribers.
1915 - A downtown drug store at Erie and Adams Street is raided by Toledo Police and the owner arrested on allegations that the druggist was making and selling illegal heroin tablets.
1929 - The News Bee reports that future plans to build a new super-highway on route of the old Miami and Erie Canal will mean future development in upriver areas of South Toledo.
1953 - Deadly tornadoes hit the Toledo area killing 13 people and injuring hundreds. Four people are killed by a twister near Temperance Michigan and eight people lose their lives in the storms in Wood and Henry Counties.

June 9
1904 - A crackdown begins on Toledo's many houses of ill-repute in the so called "Tenderloin" district. The new focus on the brothels is triggered by the discovery of two 14-year-old girls working in the house of Lottie Barker on Lafayette Street.
1910 - City officials are being asked to reduce the speed limit on downtown streets from the current eight(8) miles per hour to 4 or 6 miles per hour after a 14-year-old girl was struck and killed at Madison and Erie Streets by a speeding car.
1921- A tragic day for Toledo Police as two Toledo Police officers, Harold Mossbrugger and Harry Dowell are killed in a shootout with a barricaded gunman at 611 Walnut Street. Police sharpshooters later open fire and kill the suspect.
1933 - A heat wave continues in Northwest Ohio. Mercury reaches 100 degrees in Bowling Green. Toledo has recorded numerous cases of people overcome by heat and at least three drownings from people trying to cool off in the river.
1983 - Long time WTOL-TV weatherman and show host, Joe Ashton retires.

June 10
1916 - Judge James Austin says he can't do much about the hundreds of women on the streets at night in Toledo who are selling their services. Austin insists that there is no room for them in the jails and all he can do is ask them to "behave".
1930 - Toledo's old and decrepit Union Station is leveled by flames to the cheers and delight of thousands who watched it burn. Toledo official soon begin a campaign to raise money for a new and improved train station for Toledo.
1942 - As part of the war effort, it's announced that a large magnesium plant will be built at Luckey, Ohio. They will extract the much needed magnesium from the limestone in a local quarry.
1961 - The Anthony Wayne Trail in the Collingwood area is turned into a deadly inferno when a gasoline tanker truck explodes and burns. The fire and blast kills four Toledo firemen, injures many others, as well as scores of local residents. Several homes are lost in the fire.

June 11
1782 - American Colonel William Crawford is burned at the stake along the Tymochtee Creek in Wyandot County. Crawford was cruelly executed by Native Americans who mistakenly believed that Crawford led the raid, earlier that spring, on the Native American village at Gnadenhudden where 96 innocents were slaughtered.
1840 - Perrysburg becomes a national focal point as the Great Whig Gathering is held at Ft. Meigs. Thousands of members of the Whig Party assemble at the Fort to nominate William Henry Harrison for President of the United States.
1879 - Baseball great Roger Bresnahan is born in Toledo. He would later be elected of the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown and would become an owner of the Toledo Mud Hens.
1897 - Owney, the world-famous traveling U.S. Postal mascot is shot to death in Toledo after reportedly biting a postal clerk at the railroad postal depot. The beloved mutt terrier is mounted and stuffed the next day by a Toledo taxidermist and his stuffed body eventually ends up in the Smithsonian Institute where his amazing story is still told to this day.
1922 - Y.W.C.A. in Toledo is in vigorous and controversial campaign to establish a minimum wage in the state of Ohio. Local pastors have joined their cause, but industry critics say a minimum wage is a socialist idea and accuse the YWCA of advocating radical ideas. They also say it will cause more jobs to be lost if employers have to raise wages.

June 12
1857 - Convicted killer Return Ward is hanged in Toledo for the shooting of his wife Olive.
1880 - John Lee Richmond pitches major league baseball's first perfect game. He played for the Worcester Ruby Legs that year and hurled his famous 1-0 victory against the Cleveland Blues. While he played baseball he earned a medical degree and in 1883 became a doctor and moved to Toledo, and later a teacher for many years in the city. He is buried at Forest Cemetery in Toledo.
1927 - Toledo Police "matron", Grace Jamison gives advice to young girls about flirting with men in cars. Mind your own business and not the "auto toots". Don't think "nice car and nice face" mean "nice boy". And it's "okay to roll your socks, but don't roll your eyes."
1953 - An earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale rattles the Toledo area.
1962 - Toledo police officer Donald Brown dies in line of duty while answering a domestic disturbance call. His partner, William "Bill" Boyle loses an eye in the gun battle. Boyle later becomes a well known leader of the Democratic party and a Toledo councilman.