This Week In Toledo History

Dec 15-21

December 15
1796 - General Anthony Wayne, hero of the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the early Indian wars of the region, dies of gout in Erie, Pennsylvania.
1872 - First Toledo fireman killed in line of duty. Fireman James Welch is killed battling a blaze on Lafayette Street.
1924 - An Indiana man is arrested for setting fire to a $100,000 yacht in the lagoon at the Toledo Yacht Club. Police say the arson was the result of a squabble between KKK members.
1929 - In an unprecedented engineering marvel, storefronts along East Toledo’s Main Street are pushed back 10 feet to widen the road for auto traffic.
1937 - Toledo Community Traction votes to remove all street cars in the city and to replace them with trackless trolleys and buses.
1949 - Five people, including three members of one family die in house fire on Laskey Road.

December 16
1798 - John Berdan, Toledo's first mayor, is born in New York.
1882 - One of Toledo first major blazes destroys the Hall Block in a wind driven fire that spread over a wide area of downtown.
1933 - Mrs. Louise Watson of Toledo is so poor she went to the City Park dump and built a house out of scrap wood and tin material and is living there. She says she has sealed it up so it is "rat proof"
1949 - New York Central Railroad suspends service on its historic passenger rail route between Toledo and Cleveland on what was known as the “old road,” which ran southeast from Toledo through Genoa, Elmore and Fremont.
1954 - Western Auto stores in Toledo are selling Daisy Red Ryder BB guns for $6.95, and Western Flyer sleds for $3.25.

December 17
1875 - The “Stony Yard,” or City Workhouse opens in Toledo for inmates to work, making blocks in the winter and bricks in the summer.
1891 - In southern Wood County more than 500 men are taking part in a massive hunt for two large mountain lions seen prowling the area.
1900 - Longshoremen’s Union in Toledo agrees that ore handlers no longer be allowed to drink on the job. Beer wagons have been lining up at the Toledo ore docks and doing brisk business.
1913 - The “You Will Do Better in Toledo” sign was unveiled and lighted atop the Valentine Theater, where it remained until the 1960s.
1926 - Chicago Tribune article states that Toledo's raw sewage is making a cesspool of western end of Lake Erie.
1940 - Preparations for war continue as four special daily trains leave Toledo to carry enlistees to boot camp in Mississippi.

December 18
1906 - Toledo Police begin practice of taking fingerprints of suspects.
1907 - In downtown Toledo, police step in to control a mob of women who were fighting to buy cheap chickens from a street vendor’s wagon.
1929 - Toledo City Mission now feeding over 3,000 unemployed men.
1944 - Toledo’s Byron Nelson, Inverness Professional, is named America’s number one athlete by national sports writers.
1978 - Actress and celebrity Katie Holmes was born in Toledo on this date as Katherine Noelle Holmes.

December 19
1833 - First lots sold in the area of early Toledo known as Vistula.
1891 - Much of Weston is devastated when fire levels more than 12 businesses and homes as bucket brigade fought valiantly to stop flames.
1936 - Toledo School Superintendent Ralph Dugdale lashes out at adults for setting a bad example by "promiscuous" drinking at football games.
1938 - Five people killed when train hits car at Rocky Ridge train crossing.
1975 - A Christmas tradition ends in downtown Toledo as it's reported that Santa Claus will not be making an appearance in any of the remaining downtown stores.

December 20
1892 - Bridge Street in East Toledo is changed to Main Street.
1903 - Toledo News Bee details the despondent environment of the infirmary and poor farm on Detroit Avenue. It reports, “There is no more misery in hell for 283 inmates.”
1920 - American Railway Express office in Toledo is robbed by six gunmen who overpower guards and take over $16,000.
1923 - The Toledo Port Commission unleashes a storm of protest over its plan to turn Bay View Park into an industrial park. Parks Commissioner S.P. Jermain calls the move “absolutely predatory.”
1931 - Toledo Police crackdown on a narcotics trafficking. They raid a home and arrest 25 people, 17 of them women.
1949 - On this day, Toledo had 21 operating movie theaters in the city. Ten of them downtown.

December 21
1906 - Lucas County Children’s Home reports record number of children ever housed there with 78 boys and 58 girls. Officials say it is harder to find homes for the boys than the girls.
1919 - A modern seven-room home in the Harvard Terrace neighborhood near the zoo is listed at $3,700.
1934 - Toledo’s National Guard Armory destroyed by flames on Spielbusch Avenue.
1943 - Methodist church women prepare Christmas gift packages as a goodwill gesture for the Italian POWs held at Camp Perry in Ottawa County.