This Week In Toledo History

March 17
1842-Thousands of Wyandot Indians of Northwest Ohio sign treaty to give up their lands and are relocated to reservations in Kansas.
1855 - A "chain gang" is formed in Toledo to put inmates to work.
1900 - St. Patrick's parish in Toledo holds a special anniversary observance of the patron saint of Ireland at the Valentine Theater. One writer says, it was done in a manner that “will be “long remembered as epoch in the history of the parish”.
1936 -Toledo police launch investigation into reports that 50 high school students took part in a liquor- fueled “petting party” and orgy.
1995 - The well known "Big Boy" restaurant statue is stolen from its Secor Road location. It is held hostage and later found "dismembered".

March 18
1895- Three men are killed by a falling wall during a fire at the roundhouse of the Wabash Railroad on South Street
1931 - Nine fishing boats from Toledo head out into Lake Erie to begin fishing season for catches of perch and pickerel.
1949 - The European art stolen by the Nazi's and recovered by the U.S. Army are on display at the Toledo Museum of Art. The paintings were found hidden in salt mines in Poland.
The hidden paintings were discovered after Merrill Rudes, an Army Sergeant from Genoa stationed nearby, was told by local Polish ladies they thought something might be hidden in the salt mines.

March 19
1903- The famous two month-old Spychalski quadruplets are being shown at an exhibition at the Kieper Brothers Factory Store on Dorr Street. More than 30,000 people line up to view the newborn infants.
1915 - Five largest bakers in Toledo indicted for anti-trust violations, accused of fixing the wholesale price of bread in the city.
1934- New York Central RR offers a $4 round trip fare from Toledo to Chicago.
1957 - A dynamite demolition reduces to rubble the last spans of the Ash- Consaul Street Bridge over the Maumee River as spectators look on.

March 20
1874 - Peter Navarre, early frontiersman, pioneer of Toledo and hero of war of 1812, dies at age 89 in a hotel room in East Toledo.
1919 - A major blaze roars through the C.E. Powers Elevator at Genoa, causing some $50,000 in damage. Powers was able to secure more rail cars from Toledo so farmers could safely store their grain.
1922- Failing to report to local hospitals for “treatment” of social diseases, 68 Toledo women are arrested and sent to the women’s' detention home.
1943- Ceremonies are held in East Toledo as the keel is laid for the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw at Toledo Shipyards. It would become the largest cutter on the Great Lakes in its 60 years of operation.
1993 - Owens Technical College wins Division II national basketball championship.

March 21
1920 - Strict enforcement of a ban on public dances on Sundays is now underway.
1931- Sinclair Lewis, Nobel prize winning author for literature appears in Toledo at the Valentine Theater but tells reporters he'd rather be home slopping his hogs on his farm in Vermont.
1932 - Dell Hair, Toledo’s well-known poet-cop, dies at the age of 60. He penned several poetry books while serving as a Toledo policeman
1973 - Toledo Municipal Court finds manager of Westwood Theatre guilty of obscenity for the showing of “Deep Throat.”

March 22
1911 - The “powder house” at the American Gypsum quarry at Port Clinton blows up. Six rail cars are destroyed and two workmen are injured.
1936 -Toledo police tell reporters that the city has become a haven for gangsters and underworld characters and they promise a crackdown.
1969 - Toledo fire pumper truck, responding to a false alarm, collides with a car at Jackman and Laskey. One fireman, Louis Fuhr, is killed.
1973 - Singer John Denver sets off firestorm of criticism in Toledo when he sings the parody ballad "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" on the Tonight Show.

March 23
1867 - It is announced that Major Joel Elliott of Toledo, a school principal, has been appointed to the 7th Cavalry Regiment of General George Armstrong Custer. He is later killed in 1868 at Custer’s controversial massacre of a Cheyenne settlement at the Washita River in the Oklahoma Territory.
1888 - Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite of Maumee dies at his Washington home of pneumonia. Waite had been appointed by President Grant.
1900 - Toledo public school teachers meet and vote overwhelmingly against establishing a pension system. Those opposed to it contend that firemen, soldiers and policemen are more deserving.
1906 - Catholic Societies petition Mayor Brand Whitlock to close city parks earlier at night and to add more lighting because "too much evil" occurs in the parks after dark “attracting unsavory and vulgar elements”.
1915 - Victoria Cadaract, the last known Chippewa Indian in the area dies of pneumonia at Oak Harbor. She was born in 1828 and lived most of her later years in a humble cabin along Crane Creek on what is now Chippewa Golf Course, named in her honor.

After asking for ideas concerning the whereabouts of the Abe Lincoln bust that once graced the front lawn of a home on Woodville Road at Hille Dr. in Millbury, I've been getting numerous responses. Several people say the statue was buried in the front lawn, but perhaps not. The latest email was from Wendy Walters who says the home was her childhood home for many years after her family bought it in 1973. She recalls as a small child there was an area in the front yard that would not grow grass so her father dug up the ground and found a concrete slab which is likely where the Lincoln bust probably sat, but only the footer for the base remained. The bust was removed from the property quite a few years before, perhaps in the late 1950's after it was moved there by its Toledo sculptor in 1941.