Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
July 6
1921: A heat wave continues in Toledo, and 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’s fire chief, telling him that “Toledo has the most beautiful women in the country.”
1928: People in the Bono area 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.
1950: Ground is broken for the new Toth Elementary School in Perrysburg.
1973: Holgate, Ohio native and actor/comedian Joe E. Brown dies at the age of 71. Brown, a Tony award winner, began his career as a Vaudeville tumbler and baseball player before becoming a comedian.
1981: A major excavation of an ancient Indian village near Rossford is underway by University of Toledo researchers. The village is believed to be about 10 acres in size and has revealed many artifacts of a 16th century Indian 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 are a health menace to children.
1928: Charles Hoppe pleads guilty to being the notorious “Toledo Slugger” serial killer. He pleads guilty to the deaths 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: Many residents turn out to see the final run for the last street car in East Toledo, the “Starr Avenue Line.”
1985: A major fire and chlorine gas leak destroys a Willis Day warehouse in North Toledo, sending 65 firemen and policemen to hospitals. The panic triggers 600 evacuations.
July 8
1862: The first "race riot" in Toledo history occurs when black stevedores working down on the docks want a raise from 12 cents to 15 cents an hour, equal with white co-workers. Mobs of angry whites attack the black workers leaving many injured.
1901: Local help wanted ads for men in the Toledo Bee are looking for “barrel stave workers, an all-around blacksmith, 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.
1924: Council votes to tear down the Alhambra Theater at Summit and Madison to make way for a clothing store.
1932: North Baltimore policeman Jay Davis is shot dead by armed robbers. The gunmen 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 the 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 installation of new shuffleboard and tennis courts.
1953: Toledo safety director William Kirk orders 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 its historic 500-mile-march on 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.
1901: Round trip steamer passage from Toledo to Mackinaw Island is advertised in local papers for $8 per person.
1906: An East Toledo councilman says they need more wells on the East side because 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: Michael Schilling of Tiffin returns from the dead. Schilling tells the Seneca County coroner that he is very much alive and well. It seems that a body identified as Schilling 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 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 that the purity of milk meets high standards of cleanliness.
1934: All beaches in Toledo along the Maumee River and Bay are closed by the health department because of typhoid bacteria.
1935: Perrysburg man, Irving Van Gunten, is arrested for working on his truck at home in violation of the town’s “Blue Laws” forbidding Sunday labor. From his jail cell, Van Gunten vows to fight the town of Perrysburg over these laws.
1940: Ringling Brothers Circus is in Toledo at Stickney Avenue Fairgrounds.
1949: The annual Aquarama Festival gets underway in Toledo as more than 25,000 people crowd the downtown streets to watch the opening parade.
1979: Wood County sees the most rainfall – 4.49 inches – in its recorded history.
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 suspected high-level German spy Baron Einrich Rolph Gersdorff at the Boody House after getting a tip from Toledo’s German community. Police and the U.S. Secret Service are investigating his frequent travels to the Willys Overland car plant.
1927: Clarence Lebeau, the 135-foot wooden freighter also known as the “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 the third-straight day as hundreds are sickened. Three people and scores of animals also die in the stifling Toledo heat wave.
1942: The Toledo Mud Hens play a record 20-inning game. It is called on account of curfew at 12:30 a.m. with the score tied 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.
July 12
1844: George Thompson is hanged in Fremont for the murder of 18-year old Catherine Hamler, who had refused his marriage proposal.
1893: A fire destroys several blocks of homes and businesses in the Wood County town of Luckey.
1904: Popular reform mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones dies of a heart failure in Toledo. Businesses close and the city is in deep mourning. His body lies in state at Memorial Hall as thousands line up to file past their beloved mayor.
1907: Thirty-two men are convicted in Toledo for violation of anti- trust laws and get six months in jail.
1927: A freight train hits an Interurban passenger trolley at the Dorr Street terminal in Toledo as three people are killed and nine are injured.
1986: A magnitude-4.5 earthquake shakes much of Northwest Ohio.
