This Week In Toledo History

September 1
1908 -The 75-foot tall Fort Meigs monument is dedicated at Perrysburg.
1937 - Toledo Police begin crackdown on child molesters. A shoe store clerk is taken into custody for luring young girls into store to model in what was actually a fake fashion show.
1945 - City files legal suit to close the reputed gambling casino, the Dixie Inn on North Detroit Avenue.
1948 - Induction Center opens for Toledoans to sign up for Korean War duty.
1949 - Record crowd for wrestling matches at Sports Arena with over 6,700 attending and watching grapplers such as The Zebra Kid, The Red Devil and The Polish Angel perform.

September 2
1911 - The Maumee River claims the lives of seven people in a small launch when they are killed in collision with freighter. Six victims are city employees.
1967 - Fire at PeeWee’s Bar on Suder Avenue, Toledo Fire Lt. Chester Rybarczyk is killed.
1972 - Dave Wottle wins 800-meter competition at Munich Olympics, becoming BGSU’s first Olympic gold medalist.
1984 - The La Tabernilla, once famous restaurant and nightclub in Oregon’s Bayshore area, burns to the ground.

September 3
1894 - Cornerstone is laid for the new and present day Lucas County Courthouse.
1907 - Arsonist torches the Put-in-Bay House hotel on South Bass Island.
1908 - Thousands of former Union soldiers from the Civil War convene at Toledo for the National Grand Army of the Republic encampment. Over 30,000 veterans from across the United States came to Toledo to be a part of the celebration that was the largest assembly of people in the city.
2001 - The final minor league game for the Mud Hens is played at Ned Skeldon Stadium in Maumee. 11,800 fans jammed the stadium for the last game as they watched the Hens lose to Columbus 13-12.

September 4
1865 - In Benton Twp of Ottawa County it was reported that after a wedding there, the local hooligans created such a celebratory ruckus, firing muskets and banging pots and pans and yelling that the newlyweds, fresh from Europe, became frightened and ran off into a nearby woods in their wedding attire and spent the night hiding on the banks of the Toussaint.
1875 - The Collins House Hotel is Oak Harbor is leveled by a raging fire. None of the contents and furniture could be saved and the proprietor, a Mr. Spitzer, barely escaped with his life.
1903 - The new automatic bottle making machine, patented by inventor Micheal Owens in Toledo is promising to revolutionize the bottle industry as one machine can do the work of 42 men.
1929 - Rutherford “Dink” Hayes, popular Port Clinton man was shot on his boat by Coast Guardsmen at Crane Creek for suspicion of rum running. Hayes is recovering from his wound, and the Coast Guardsman Gardner Young is charged with assault.
1940 - With much celebration, the new Toledo Public Library building opens downtown on Michigan Avenue.

September 5
1865 - Wooden span of the Cherry Street Bridge is opened to traffic with new drawbridge.
1897 - First “horseless carriage” appears on an Elmore, Ohio street.
1900 - Cresceus, Toledo's famous champion race horse, owned by George Ketcham breaks the world record for one mile for trotters. The popular stallion achieves the milestone at 2:04 minutes and 3/4 seconds while competing in Hartford Connecticut.
1922 - Oakdale Elementary School opens its doors for students.
1929 - U.S. Coast Guard announces a full blitz of stepped up patrols and a fleet of 20 new boats to combat the rum running on Lake Erie from Toledo to Sandusky.
1954 - It’s discovered that an unknown Navy pilot dropped practice bombs on top of the Toledo water intake crib, damaging the roof.

September 6
1885 - Popular actor of the 1930s and 40s, Otto Kruger, is born in Toledo. Ironically, 89 years later in 1974, on his birthday, Kruger died
1917 - Sixteen Toledo nurses, recent grads from Mercy nursing school, leave for war duty in Europe.
1922 - TPD Detective William Martin shot and killed by car theft suspects in Fulton Garage at 302 Prescott St. His partner, Detective George Bach, is wounded.
1932 - Toledo police beef up registration of "pickpockets. ‘ The Queen of the lifters is "Big Majority", while others like "Little Bit", "Lifting Lena" and "Nimble Nell" are so good they can search a man's pockets while asking him for the time of day.

September 7
1876 - Town of Freeport in Wood County is incorporated, later to be renamed Prairie Depot and then renamed Wayne.
1887 - Downtown Toledo holds huge public celebration to usher in the natural gas boom and the promise it brings for the area’s future. Thousands attend, including former President Rutherford B. Hayes.
1937 - Downtown Woodville bank is robbed of over $1,800 by a lone bandit armed with a sawed-off shotgun.
1945 - Within a month after the Japanese surrender in World War ll, the Navy discharges the first sailors through the Toledo Naval Separation Center at the Naval Armory Building at Bay View Park.