This Week In Toledo History

December 8-14

December 8
1904 - Onetime Toledo grifter and swindler Cassie Chadwick, alias Madame DeVere, goes on trial in New York for fraud and other charges in one of the most celebrated fraud cases of that era.
1923 - Scott High School football team wins National HS Championship defeating Washington High School of Cedar Rapids Iowa, 24-21.
1941 - President Roosevelt and Congress declare war on Japan and Germany. Armed sentries begin patrolling military sites around Toledo.
1961 - Toledo Police Officer Walter Boyle shot to death in line of duty while serving a warrant for a suspect. Suspect cornered later by police and killed.

December 9
1902 - Major fire at Keifer Furniture on Dorr Street. Two Toledo firemen, Thomas Smith and Richard Donnelly are killed by falling debris.
1922 - Waite High football team wins National High School Title.
1926 - Toledo Police look for a gunman who kidnapped Toledo motorcycle cop Robert Pribe. The gunman hopped into his sidecar in West Toledo and put a gun to the officer’s head and ordered him to drive him four blocks and then escaped.
1929 - “Daddy” Charles Wormley is laid to rest at Forest Cemetery in Toledo. Wormley was an ex-slave and well-known “Negro” citizen of that era.
1932 - Toledo News Bee reports that a log cabin settlement has been built on the Maumee River, 20 miles from Toledo, by destitute war veterans and their families who are living in the cabins during the winter months.
1953 - First section of Interstate 280 is opened near Woodville Road, becoming Toledo’s first modern interstate expressway.

December 10
1879 - Toledo area medical pioneer Horatio Conant dies at age 94.
1897 - Toledo officials say the city now has 350 miles of streets, with 110 miles paved, mostly with stone and cedar blocks.
1909 - Strong gale-force winds on Lake Erie send three ships to bottom of lake. Fifty-two crewmen perish in the tragedies, including several from Toledo.
1918 - Toledo Public Schools close because of worsening flu epidemic. All children are banned from gathering in any public places including theaters, churches and schools.
1985 - Life Flight Helicopter from St. Vincent Hospital crashes during heavy fog in Michigan, killing the pilot and doctor on board.

December 11
1833 - First newspaper in Wood County, called Miami of the Lake, published.
1916 - Two Toledo firemen, Albert Urie and Captain Edward Welch, killed battling blaze at Paddington Merchandising Warehouse at 114 St. Clair Street, downtown.
1945 - An influenza epidemic is again sweeping Northwest Ohio. Twelve schools in 9 counties have been closed because of the flu.
1980 - Major fire levels much of the Heinz ketchup plant in Bowling Green.

December 12
1907 - Toledo Police Judge James Austin declares that “guns are the greatest evil police have to deal with” and orders mandatory 90-day sentences for anyone caught with a concealed firearm in the city.
1928 - Hearings underway after reports that a Toledo tug boat was riddled with machine gun fire from a Coast Guard patrol boat allegedly operated by guardsmen who were drunk. It was later found the Coast Guardsmen were not intoxicated.
1933 - Fred Miller of Elmore, trapped in his home by flames, leaps through a 2nd story window and then one-by-one his three children and wife leap into his waiting arms to escape the fire which destroyed the house.
1941 - Civilian defense agencies are recruiting hundreds of volunteers for security patrols as war efforts begin.
1952 - Port Clinton city officials now urging governor to build a new Ohio maximum security prison at Camp Perry.
1979 - Ross Hotel building, at Prospect and Wooster is gutted by flames; 24 people were routed from the burning hotel that was built in 1900.

December 13
1864 - Escape by rebel prisoners reported from the Confederate prison camp at Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay.
1909 - Toledo City Council approves electric street lights for East Toledo’s Main Street.
1919 - Harry Gardiner, a “human fly,” scales side of Milliken Hotel in Bowling Green to delight of spectators.
1932 - Toledo liquor gang war heats up as small time gangster August “Gusty” Annarino is kidnapped and slain by rivals and his body dumped on South Street.
1946 - Deadly passenger train disaster near Mansfield, Ohio when 15 people are killed including two crew members from Toledo.

December 14
1900 - Toledo Deputy Fire Marshal Walter Payne, during a meeting to discuss fire safety with state fire marshal, lights a cigar and drops match in wastebasket, setting it ablaze.
1910 -Toledo City Council OKs spending $1,000 to create a laboratory for the Health Department to help stop typhoid and diphtheria.
1933 - One of the worst water main breaks in Toledo’s history when a pipe ruptured on Parkside at Clarendon Drive, cutting off water to thousands and flooding wide areas of West Toledo. The flood sent 15 million gallons of water per day into the streets.
1940 - The Forest Park Amusement Center near Genoa on Woodville Road is hit by a fire that destroyed the park's small bowling alley.
1945 - The first Italian prisoners of war held at the prison facility at Camp Perry are returned home to Italy.