Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
July 5
1885: Genoa is cleaning up after its huge Fourth of July celebration. Many county residents took the train into town and were greeted by the Genoa band and the marshal, and many of the citizens gave the visitors a hearty welcome at the depot. Most headed for the racetrack where the events were held and where S.T. Wood was showing off his six-legged pig.
1886: A major Memorial Day parade is held on the downtown streets of Toledo as military veterans and other groups show their patriotism and remembrance of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiments from the Civil War.
1914: Toledo Park Board officials want a plain-clothes detective to keep watch on animal exhibits at the zoo to arrest the “jokers” who are spitting tobacco juice in the eyes of monkeys and feeding stones to animals.
1920: More than 1,500 people gather for the re-dedication of the statue of General James Blair Steedman in Riverside Park.
1926: Toledo Zoo animal keeper Louis Scherer is recovering from flesh wounds to the buttocks after being bitten by a black bear while cleaning the cage.
1927: A freight train hits an Interurban passenger trolley, killing three and injuring nine others, at the Dorr Street terminal in Toledo.
1952: Tom Henricks, a future space shuttle astronaut, is born in Williams County. His family moved later to Woodville, where he grew up.
1969: A major rain and windstorm called a “derecho” rakes the Toledo area, resulting in one of the worst storms in area history. Thousands of trees are downed, and widespread damage occurs to buildings along with power outages and flooding.
1986: A very strong magnitude-4.5 earthquake shakes much of Northwest Ohio.
July 6
1921: A heat wave continues in Toledo. One downtown lemonade seller reports sales of over 10,000 glasses in one day.
1923: Los Angeles firemen who are touring the nation write a letter to Toledo fire chief telling him that “Toledo has the most beautiful women in the country.”
1928: People in the Bono area are still talking about the recent encounter with pilot Charles Lindbergh when Lucky Lindy, flying a new Curtiss mail plane over Lake Erie, was forced down near Bono. Some residents got to meet the famous aviator before he left the area.
1929: Official ceremonies are held to celebrate the closing of the Miami and Erie Canal. This event marks the start of preparation for what would become the Anthony Wayne Trail. The festivities are quelled by vandals who prematurely drained the canal before the event.
1973: Holgate native and actor/comedian Joe E. Brown dies at the age of 71. A Tony award winner, Brown began his career as a Vaudeville tumbler and baseball player before becoming a comedian.
1981: A major excavation is underway by University of Toledo researchers of an ancient Native American village near Rossford. It is believed to be about 10 acres in size and has revealed many artifacts of a 16th century Native American culture.
July 7
1922: Residents near Libbey High School stage a protest about the stench and smoke-filled dump along Swan Creek at Hawley Street, where spoiled food and debris smolder and are a health menace to children.
1928: Charles Hoppe pleads guilty to being the notorious “Toledo Slugger” serial killer. He pleads guilty to the death of one woman and a seven-year-old girl. It was later determined that Hoppe did kill these victims but was not the notorious “slugger.”
1933: Local well-known bootlegger Jackie Kennedy is gunned down by hit men near his home in Point Place as the war between rival bootleggers in Toledo reaches a new peak of violence.
1937: Strike violence continues in Toledo against the Federal Creosote Plant at Hill and Byrne, as strikers hurl rocks at a small army of guards brought in to keep the peace.
1939: The last streetcar in East Toledo, the “Starr Avenue Line,” makes a final run. Many residents turn out to witness it.
1985: A major fire and chlorine gas leak destroys a Willis Day warehouse in North Toledo, sending 65 fire and policemen to hospitals. The panic triggers 600 evacuations.
July 8
1901: Local “help wanted ads for men” in the Toledo Bee show people looking for “barrel stave workers, an all-around blacksmith, and carriage painters and someone to “look after a cow on Monroe Street.” For women, jobs are available for “sewers,” “dining room girls” and “a girl to take charge” of a dry-cleaning store.
1932: North Baltimore policeman Jay Davis is shot dead by armed robbers, who then embark on a wild crime spree in Toledo, shooting a physician before kidnapping a man and his son.
1949: Genoa’s annual water carnival at Veteran’s Park is reported to have been a major success with over 1,000 people attending a diving competition and comic wrestling event. The park is now undergoing the installation of new shuffleboard and tennis courts.
1953: Toledo safety director William Kirk orders the Toledo Police morals squad to start removing all contraceptive machines from local bars after complaints from the Catholic Chronicle.
1983: The Toledo-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) begins an historic 500-mile march to Campbell headquarters in New Jersey to demand union recognition.
July 9
1896: Two Toledo men set the transcontinental bike racing record, riding from New York City to San Francisco in 37 days, 14 hours and 30 minutes.
1906: An East Toledo councilman says they need more wells on the East side, and that many people are having to drink river water.
1909: A mob of more than 400 people were ready to lynch a man accused of “attacking” a six-year-old girl on Gordon Street. They had a rope and a gun and were shouting “kill him” when Toledo police arrived and quelled the “spirit of the mob.”
1917: Tiffin’s Michael Schilling “returns from the dead,” telling the Seneca County coroner that he is alive after a body was misidentified as him was buried the year before.
1925: The Fort Meigs Hotel opens in downtown Toledo.
1950: The first official “Music Under the Stars” concert debuts at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater with the Toledo Symphony.
July 10
1904: The city of Toledo is on edge as news about the condition of Mayor Samuel Jones is not hopeful. His condition is deteriorating rapidly. The News Bee says his condition is “as grave as it can be,” and he is now “in the shadow of death.”
1907: A public campaign is underway in Toledo to ensure that milk sold at local stores and dairies are healthy for young babies. The local health board is continuing its investigation into the purity of milk meeting high standards of cleanliness.
1934: All the beaches in Toledo along the Maumee River and Maumee Bay are closed by the health department because of typhoid bacteria.
1940: The Ringling Brothers Circus is in Toledo at the Stickney Avenue Fairgrounds.
1949: The annual Aquarama Festival is underway in Toledo as more than 25,000 people crowd the downtown streets to watch the opening parade.
1979: Wood County receives its most single-day rainfall in recorded history, 4.49 inches.
July 11
1901: An investigation is underway at the Toledo workhouse on Duck Island in Swan Creek where released inmates tell of inhumane and brutal conditions of starvation and beatings.
1917: Toledo police arrest a suspected high-level German spy, Baron Einrich Rolph Gersdorff, at the Boody House after getting a tip from Toledo’s German community. Police and Secret Service are investigating his frequent travels to the Willys Overland car plant.
1927: The “Clarence Lebeau,” a 135-foot wooden freighter also known as “City of Holland,” burns in the Maumee River.
1934: Numerous German American groups in Toledo file complaints about an anti-Hitler movie, “Reign of Terror,” showing at the Pantheon Theater in Toledo.
1936: Mercury soars past 100 for third day as hundreds are sickened. Three people die from heat stroke and scores of animals die in the stifling Toledo heat wave.
1942: The Toledo Mud Hens play a record 20-inning game, which was eventually called for curfew at 12:30 am. knotted at six apiece.
1943: Lt. Robert Craig of Toledo is killed in combat in Italy. He had taken out two German machine gun nests and saved his company of fellow soldiers. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The bridge over the Maumee River was named in his honor.
2000: A four-alarm blaze destroys the Vistula Heritage Apartments at Erie and Locust.
