This Week in Toledo’s Past

October 6
1873- Last volunteer fire company in Toledo shuts down operations.
1897 - Elmore rail station agent J.C. Meacham is missing after stealing thousands of dollars in railroad funds and alleged to have run away with a French actress, who he later dumped at the Pittsburgh train depot.
1903 - Toledo city council passes an anti-flirting ordinance.
1927 -Toledo Mud Hens win the International League Championship, defeating the Buffalo Bison at Toledo’s Swayne Field in the “junior” World Series. Casey Stengel is the Hens manager.
1930 - Toledo gambling figures Abe “The Punk” Lubitsky and Norman Blatt shot dead on Franklin Avenue in continuing mob war.
1975 - The BGSU Homecoming game celebration includes a “snake dance” with over 3,300 dancers, setting a world record for longest snake dance.

October 7
1845 - Bank of Toledo opens for business.
1856 - Moses Fleetwood Walker is born. He later becomes first black man ever to play in professional baseball, playing first for the Toledo Blue Stocking team for the 1884 season.
1919 - King Albert of Belgium makes visit to Toledo with Brand Whitlock, the Ambassador to Belgium and former mayor of Toledo.
1933 - The Civic Auditorium is jammed with 4,500 women, who are there to attend a News Bee Cooking School.
1935 - The Detroit Tigers win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs in six games (4-2). The victory is a boost to the residents of Depression weary area.
1936 - Toledo officials demand an investigation to determine the extent of Black Legion activities among TPD officers. The Black Legion was a secret and shadowy hate group that espoused terror against Catholics and Jews.

October 8
1888 -The Elmore Independent notes that a man has found a giant tooth in a rural part of the county that was almost 4 inches long and over 1 ¼-inch wide. The paper speculates that perhaps it belonged to an ancient mammoth.
1897 - Fire destroys several buildings in downtown Gibsonburg.
1900 - Accused child molester, E. Bushong is rushed to jail in Bowling Green after a lynch mob formed in North Baltimore and was ready to hang the suspect.
1925 - Mystery trunk found at Toledo’s Union Station. It was first thought to contain a body because of a strong foul odor, but police discover the trunk contained a dozen heads of stinking cabbage.

October 9
1837 - Toledo City Council passes ordinance prohibiting gambling, billiards and roulette tables.
1909 -Toledo Patrolman Lawrence Nachtraub rescues a man from the Michigan and Central train tracks, a split second before he would have been hit. The man had fainted and Officer Nachtraub saw him lying on the tracks as the train was approaching. The locomotive did strip off one of the man’s shoes before he was plucked from the rails.
1947 - Shooting erupts in a Findlay church when an Ohio State patrolman shoots and wounds a gunman holding an Episcopal rector hostage.
1968 -Toledo Mayor William Ensign orders more police patrols at city high school football games after recent flare-up of violence.

October 10
1894 - Citizen Federation formed to combat and uncover corruption at City Hall.
1904 - It’s reported in the Toledo News Bee that a group of Toledo fishermen caught a giant goldfish, weighing three-quarters of a pound near Odeon Island in Maumee Bay.
1933- Lucas County Sheriff’s Deputy Leo Flanagan dies by friendly fire as police surrounded murder suspect "Floyd "Sailor" Baldwin in South Toledo. Baldwin had been wanted in the killing of a golfer at Sylvania Country Club.
1945- The “Mary Jane” Interurban makes its last freight run on the Ohio Public Service tracks through Port Clinton, Oak Harbor and Genoa.
1968 - Detroit Tigers capture the 1968 World Series in game seven in St. Louis against the Cardinals.

October 11
1881 - Wood County farmer Charles Bach brutally kills his wife Mary with a corn knife in their home near Weston. He walks into sheriff’s office that morning and confesses.
1904 - Judge Morris in Toledo denies several divorces from women who say their husbands are grouchy and ill-tempered. Judge Morris says those aren’t justifiable grounds for divorce.
1915 -Toledo workhouse matron Hattie DeMuth is sent to Piqua, Ohio to chase down an escaped inmate because the male deputies were busy harvesting crops, Hattie collars the inmate and returns him to Toledo.
1945 - New York Central Railroad approves a grant of $3.5 million for a new Union Station facility in South Toledo.
1948 - Cleveland Indians win the World Series in game six against the Boston Braves.
1954 Toledo Police Morals Squad investigates local gamblers who are now betting on local high school games.

October 12
1883 - Charles Bach hanged for murder of his wife Mary in Wood County. National Guard troops are called to keep the peace at the jail where he is executed. He is the last convicted killer to be hanged in Wood County.
1933 - Gangster John Dillinger escapes from Allen County Jail in Lima. Sheriff Jeff Sarber tried to reach for his gun but was shot twice by Dillinger's gang members.
1959 - First cargo of VWs unloads in Toledo, which would become a major unloading port.