Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Jan. 11
1899: Actor Frank Murphy is hit by a real brick, instead of a fake one, during a fight scene at the People's Theater in Toledo. Severely wounded, with blood streaming down his back, he keeps right on acting in the scene.
1906: The Toledo Zoo reports that a female black bear has killed her newborn cubs.
1911: Lucas County Common Pleas Judge John Manton rules that some couples seeking divorce should be spanked instead.
1918: Lion’s Store is selling ladies corsets for 79 cents.
1936: Louis Hirschy, a Swiss immigrant known as the “tree man” of East Toledo, passes away. Hirschy was regarded by many as a reclusive scholar and an arborist, credited with planting thousands of trees on the East Side, many of which stood for over a century. He made his home at Greenwood and Walden, two streets that he had renamed by the city to honor his love of nature.
1942: Lonz Winery on Middle Bass Island burns to the ground.
Jan. 12
1859: Temperatures in Toledo plunge to 12 below zero.
1904: A mother and her seven children are found living in an old freezing shanty in a Jerusalem Township marsh near Lake Erie. The family was huddled in straw for warmth to survive. Local farmers take them in to care for them.
1918: A severe deep freeze and blizzard hits the Toledo area. Railroads are stopped, while ambulances and street shovelers are overwhelmed. Two hundred Overland factory workers are treated for frostbite that they suffered as they walked to work.
1930: Toledo health officials are investigating reports of the rare “Parrot Fever” in Toledo, said to have come from imported birds.
1944: The Colony Shopping Center at Monroe and Central is destroyed by fire, killing Toledo fireman James Fakeheny from a falling slab of concrete and injuring nine other firefighters. The blaze started in the basement of the bowling alley and spread.
1963: A mass rescue operation on Lake Erie at Reno Beach takes place as the Coast Guard plucks 150 fishermen from floes of breaking ice.
Jan. 13
1895: A powerful nitroglycerin blast shakes the town of Gibsonburg, and shock waves are felt as far away as Findlay.
1911: A report from Columbus and the board of pharmacy says Toledo sells more illegal cocaine than any other city in the state of Ohio, and not just to "lower classes," but dealers are also selling to children.
1930: Perrysburg residents are stunned by the murder of local pharmacist Wilbert Livingston. He was shot three times in cold blood near his home on Front Street by an old acquaintance.
1958: Frank Elementary School in Perrysburg opens for classes.
1959: A 15-year-old boy at Libbey High School makes news for refusing to cut his hair and is facing suspension. His mother, Audry Hazard, says she is “fighting mad” and thinks the boy's hair is just fine. He got it cut once, and she said it was deemed to be too long because it was curling in the back.
Jan. 14
1875: The University of Toledo opens in the basement of the half-finished Unitarian Church on the corner of Adams and 10th Street.
1906: Toledo police raid a Sunday burlesque show at the Empire Theater and arrest an entire company of performers for violation of the Sunday amusement prohibitions.
1914: Fifteen inches of snow falls in Wood County.
1943: Some Maumee High School boys wear skirts to school in protest of girls who are starting to wear slacks.
1953: After a would-be safe cracker confesses for fear that kids might find the explosives, Toledo police uncover 15 pints of nitroglycerin buried at Willys Park, and they bring in an explosives expert to detonate it on site. The safe cracker had buried it there three years prior.
1995: Ruby Starr, a rock singer from the Toledo area, dies from lung cancer at the age of 45. Born Constance Mierzwiak, Starr sang in several local groups before touring and gaining national prominence with a powerful voice. She was most well known as a member of the group Black Oak Arkansas in the 1970s and 80s.
Jan. 15
1905: The Toledo News Bee runs a special on a “firebug gang” that terrorized Northwest Ohio for 25 years with scores of fires. They called it a “carnival of crime” perpetrated by as many as 40 men who set many buildings ablaze in Lucas, Fulton, and Williams Counties.
1914: Toledo police reinstate the use of nightsticks, or billy clubs, after they had been banned by Mayor Samuel Jones who considered them a barbarous weapon of the past.
1936: The first glass-covered building in the United States is completed in Toledo at the Owens-Illinois research facility on Westwood Avenue near Dorr Street. It is covered entirely in 80,000 glass blocks and has no windows.
1938: Toledo leaders put a sealed letter into a Toledo Public Library cornerstone to be unsealed and read by Toledoans in the year 2037 on the city’s bicentennial.
Jan. 16
1915: Electric service first begins for Pemberville residents.
1929: Ted Hay, 30, a stunt flyer and commercial pilot dies when the wing of his plane collapsed as he was about to make landing at Toledo Transcontinental Airport in Lake Township. Witnesses say the plane tumbled about 75 feet to the ground as the wing came off.
1930: An 18-year-old woman serving as a volunteer timekeeper for a basketball game at Hamilton School in Toledo is severely beaten and left unconscious by some members of the "Elm Street Aces" who accuse her of ending the game early, thus allowing their defeat.
1932: News is received that Mrs. Hattie Sutliff of Toledo has died at the age of 103. Family members say she was the mother of 25 children. She was one of the first area pioneers, arriving in a covered wagon in the 1830s.
1936: A 12-year-old girl is rescued from a brothel run by Maude Adams and May O'Dell. She told police she had also been dancing at a strip club called the "Happy Hour" on Summit Street. One man was arrested and six others are being sought.
1984: Babcock Dairy, a longtime milk retailer in Toledo, closes its doors on Berdan Avenue.
Jan. 17
1881: The parents of Elmore’s William Drury sue Robert Scott, the former governor of South Carolina who shot and killed their son on Christmas Day in Napoleon. They sued for $10,000 but settled for $500.
1893: Former U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes dies at his Spiegel Grove home in Fremont.
1912: The newly constructed Toledo Museum of Art opens its doors to huge crowds of more than 5,000 people. Toledo glass maker Edward Drummond Libbey, the creator of the museum, was given an ornate key to the city by Mayor Brand Whitlock. Libbey told the crowd: "If I have lit a torch that shall enlighten the ways of the city, I shall indeed have been more than rewarded."
1921: Two railroad detectives, A.E. Long and Louis Schroeder, are robbed and then shot to death in a brazen daylight robbery. The armed bandits are reported to have followed their car as it drove away from Union Station and then commandeered the detectives on Wade Street. The robbers took two satchels containing $12,000 in passenger ticket receipts.
1928: The Vita Temple Theater in Toledo is showing “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson. Matinee admission is just 35 cents.
1977: The coldest 24-hour period on record begins in Toledo.
MESSAGE FROM LOU HEBERT
Many thanks to those of you who ordered my book, Day by Day in Toledo! I hope you all enjoy the daily rundown of the past events and happenings in the Toledo area. We had such a robust response for orders that I've had to order more from the printer. For those of you still waiting, they'll be arriving soon. Sorry for the delay, and Happy New Year!
