This Week In Toledo History

August 4 – 10

August 4
1894 - Fire destroys large area of downtown Oak Harbor including the Portage Hotel.
1910 - Mayor Brand Whitlock orders Toledo police not to arrest boys for swimming in the Maumee River until “suitable” swimming pools are built in the city.
1916 - A long heat wave is continuing. The city humane officer says at least 25 horses have died from the heat and police say the heat wave has triggered a crime wave.
1922 - A 68-year- old Toledo washer woman inherits $365,000 from two wealthy uncles. Mary Wiggins Shultz who had spent much of her life doing cleaning work at the Pythian Castle would get to live a much different future.
1968 - Search is underway for four people on Lake Erie after plane crash near South Bass Island.
1981 - Cynthia Anderson, a secretary working for a law firm in North Toledo vanishes from the office. She is never found. It is speculated that she may have been kidnapped and murdered by unknown people involved in drug trafficking.

August 5
1899 - Surveyors and engineers working on the new electric Interurban have been studying the land around Genoa to get a “lay of the land” before they begin putting down the iron rails that will run from Toledo to Norwalk and will pass through Genoa.
1905 - News reports say Toledo has become a hub for human slave traffic from Canada. Girls from Montreal are being lured to Toledo with promises of employment only to be put into immoral servitude.
1952 - Toledo Mud Hens owner Danny Menendez indicted for season ticket sales fraud after moving the Toledo team to West Virginia.
1979 - Gulf Oil Refinery on Front Street in East Toledo catches fire after lightning strike. The massive blaze consumes a million gallons of gasoline and could be seen for 40 miles.

August 6
1902 - Toledo records show that there are now some 88 automobiles in use around the city.
1908 - The fashionable Hotel Secor opens in downtown Toledo with much fanfare as opening festivities host the “who's who” of the city and feature the finest of food and hospitality.
1922 - Food prices are so high in Toledo and across the nation that a Lucas County grand jury has been seated to investigate profiteering by the food industry. Mayor Schrieber purchases tons of fresh “army” meat to sell at cut rates prices for Toledoans who can’t afford store prices. The Housewives’ League is holding hearings on what retailers may be gouging customers.
1935 - The old Milburn Wagon Works factory in Toledo being readied for demolition with the old bricks to be salvaged for use on projects at the Toledo Zoo.
1958 - Five people, including a policeman, are shocked by lightning at the Wood County Fair during a thunderstorm.

August 7
1893 - Five people killed in train crash near Lindsey. Two Chicago baseball players injured.
1914 - TPD Patrolman Albert Schultz killed in line of duty when shot while investigating a burglary.
1917 - Pocket picking taken seriously in Bowling Green as a 26-year-old man accused of that crime in 1913, is captured and convicted and sent to up to five years in prison.
1923 - Thousands of people descend on Deshler to watch the passing of President Warren G. Harding's funeral train roll through that NW Ohio town enroute to Washington, D.C.

August 8
1880 - Toledo’s population reported to be 50,137 people.
1899 - Thousands of people are heading for Toledo to see a reenactment of the “Battle of San Juan Hill” to be played out at Armory Ball Park. Special trains are being run to Toledo to handle an estimated 20,000 spectators.
1916 -Toledo is coping with the worst mosquito invasion that locals can ever recall.
1951 - A U.S. Air Force pilot and ground witnesses see a strange cigar-shaped object flying in skies near Port Clinton over Lake Erie.
1962 - Stanley “Skip” Jechura, owner of Raceway Park, and another man, are killed in plane crash near Flint, Mich.

August 9
1894 - Electric streetcars make their first run from Toledo to Perrysburg as part of the Toledo, Maumee Valley Streetcar Company.
1905 - Cherry Street Bridge tender is fired after almost failing to get the draw spans up in time for a ship to pass through. A street car nearly plunged into river.

1911 - One man is killed and seven workers badly injured when dynamite explodes prematurely in the quarry at Clay Center.
1932 - Radio broadcasting of fire alarms begins in the city.

August 10
1905 - The “Pope-Toledo” automobile is selling nationwide for $3,500. It is called the “quiet mile-a-minute car.”
1927 - Aviation hero Charles Lindberg performs a low altitude flyover of ballgame at Armory Park in Toledo. He drops a message of goodwill to the spectators below.
1933 - Well-known area racketeer and colorful underworld figure, Jacob “Firetop” Sulkin is indicted for the murder of Toledo area bootlegger Jackie Kennedy in Point Place.
1964 - Toledo Public School lunches in the area are going to increase to 35 cents.