Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
April 19
1909: Wood County officials decry public drunkenness on electric Interurbans passing through the county. No more “passing of the bottle” will be allowed by passengers.
1912: In the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic, Toledo Blade reporter Frank Skeldon is the first reporter to interview survivors as they arrived back in New York. He hired a tugboat to meet the ship, the Carpathia, as it sailed near New York Harbor, while other reporters waited on the dock.
1915: Toledo mothers complain at City Hall that vacant lots are becoming dangerous public dumps after two children die from eating spoiled foods in lots on Vance Street.
1933: Toledo mother and daughter, Julia Fields and Evelyn Long, make national news in "Ripley's Believe it or Not" as they both observed 50th wedding anniversaries on the same day.
1945: As the Allies prepare what could be a final assault against Germany, the victory comes with a mounting toll in lives. The latest honor roll for the Toledo area lists the names of 42 local service members either, killed, wounded, missing in action, or held as prisoners of war.
1971: Toledo residents begin the new policy of having to carry their own garbage cans out to the street for pick up. The refuse men will no longer retrieve them for homeowners.
April 20
1864: Toledo City Council approves a budget for the construction of the Cherry Street Bridge, which is the first bridge to connect the west and east sides of town.
1876: William Gardner of Toledo, a civil war veteran and inventor of the popular Gardner machine gun, is in Hartford, Conn. supervising construction on his newest version of the weapon. Gardner later sells the gun to the British Army and Royal Navy before also moving to England.
1881: David Dows, the magnificent five-masted schooner, is launched from Toledo. It drew massive crowds to the riverfront as the Dows was considered the largest sailing vessel ever to ply the waters of the Great Lakes. The Dows, however, would be lost in a shipwreck in Lake Michigan in 1889.
1922: "Tony the Ape," the largest ape at the Toledo Zoo, goes on a wild attack against popular zookeeper, Louis Scherer. It was a dramatic life and death struggle as the animal sunk his teeth into Scherer's neck. Tony was shot to death by Toledo policemen. Bitten numerous times, Scherer took weeks to recover.
1949: Eight-hundred commercial fishermen from Northwest Ohio converge on the Ohio State House in Columbus to protest a bill that would ban commercial fishing in Sandusky Bay.
1979: Two explosions and a huge fire at the Sun Oil Refinery rock the neighborhoods around the facility in Oregon. No one is injured.
April 21
1906: News of the great San Francisco earthquake shocks the nation as the News Bee reports they have located six people from Toledo among the survivors.
1910: One of the last wooden grain elevators in Toledo burns to the ground along Miami Street and the riverfront.
1917: Adeline Eddis of Toledo becomes the first woman in Toledo to be awarded construction contracts to build all sidewalks for the city. The mother of five says she has been working since she was 14 and started building sidewalks in 1909.
1926: CLA-ZEL Theater opens in Bowling Green using a mash-up of the names of owners Clark and Hazel Young.
1930: A deadly fire erupts at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. Inmates are trapped, and 322 perish. Twenty-four of the victims were inmates from Lucas County. A Toledo inmate, convicted robber George Mengione, was credited with saving the lives of 20 fellow prisoners.
1935: Toledo residents mourn the death of Sylvanus P. Jermain, the man considered the "first citizen" of Toledo and the "Father of American Public Golf." Jermain's legacy was to create public recreation in Toledo and elsewhere. He was a friend to numerous top golfers in the country. Jermain Park is named for him.
1937: A campaign by some disgruntled East Toledo residents to secede from the city gets underway. Many East side residents complain they are not being treated fairly by the city.
1951: Four children perish in a trailer fire on Woodville Road near Forest Park outside of Genoa. The children ranged from 1-5 years old. A defective heater was traced as the cause of the morning blaze.
April 22
1878: The Port Clinton News reports that the wheat crop this year in Ottawa County has never looked better.
1908: Eleven people in Maumee begin a series of painful shots at the base of their spines for “hydrophobia” after being bitten by a rabid dog.
1922: A wild shootout unfolds in downtown Toledo as an irate husband shot his wife four times. A nearby policeman drew his revolver and started firing at the husband and sent bullets flying everywhere.
1947: Toledo health authorities say there is no evidence of a rabies epidemic, although 14 rabid dogs were found in the past week.
April 23
1879: Toledo mayor William Kraus says there are too many animals running loose in the city, including farm animals such as hogs, cows, and horses. He exhorts citizens to contain their animals. He says many jobless residents could be put to work herding and controlling the animals and until then he will declare war on horses running at large.
1911: Detectives say the blast that killed 21 men at the Los Angeles Times is linked to Bloomville after it was discovered that the dynamite used in the blast was stolen from a quarry in that Seneca County town.
1913: Two buffaloes escape from the Toledo Zoo. "Bill and Belle" send neighbors of Harvard Terrace running to the safety of their homes. The two bison at the park "sniffed a bit of freedom" and started roaming the nearby streets before eventually being rounded up.
1928: Toledo police arrest 63 people in a series of weekend vice raids targeting prostitution and gambling houses in the city.
1938: Toledo police raid a church on Ironwood Street where the dying minister, Joshua Bey, declared he would rise from the dead, like Jesus. His body was not touched for three days as it lay on the altar. On the fourth day, police seized his lifeless body, and the coroner declared that Bey was in fact mortal and needed burial.
1977: Elvis Presley performs at the University of Toledo’s Centennial Hall, drawing a sell-out crowd of nearly 10,000 fans.
April 24
1837: The first taxes are levied on Toledo citizens to pay for city services and salaries. The first city marshal, Calvin Comstock, is hired.
1861: As the Civil War begins, more than 100 men leave Toledo for duty in the Union Army as a part of the 14th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
1953: Toledo's industrial scene changes dramatically as the Willys-Overland Company sells the Jeep plant to the Kaiser-Frazer company.
1979: State representative Irma Karmol, 56 of Toledo, dies in an automobile accident in Perrysburg. Passenger and fellow state representative, Robert Brown, is also injured.
April 25
1937: It’s opening day at Swayne Field, located at Monroe and Detroit. Box seats to watch Mud Hens play sell for $1.
1947: Virgil Gladieux announces that a “new” sports arena will be built at the east end of the Cherry Street Bridge on Main Street in East Toledo.
1959: The $459 million link between the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes called the St. Lawrence Seaway officially opens to ship traffic.
