Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Nov. 2
1906: Miller Brothers Grocery at Summit and Walnut advertises oranges for 30 cents per dozen, dressed chickens for 12 cents per pound, and beef pot roast for seven cents per pound.
1926: Three men hold up the State Savings Bank in Maumee and escape with $6,000 in cash.
1935: Lakeshore Interurban crashes with a car four miles east of Toledo along Woodville Road, injuring 43 people.
1941: The Christian Temple Church in Toledo burns a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf on the altar as the congregation sings old hymns and the national anthem.
1942: Fremont's “Million Miler” pilot Jack Zimmerman is killed in an Army Air Corps seaplane crash in the St. Lawrence River near Quebec, Canada. Zimmerman's remains and those of other crew members were not recovered until 2009.
1952: Fire chief Karl Scheidler dies after suffering a heart attack during a marsh fire in North Toledo.
1968: The Rivoli and the Palace Theaters on St. Clair Street in downtown Toledo, which sat side by side, turn off the projectors for the last time as they go out of business.
Nov. 3
1904: Toledo city officials begin talks about building a new bridge over the Maumee River at Jefferson Avenue.
1909: The Toledo police court hears “startling” testimony that a local cocaine ring being run by the “Jefferson Street Gang” has been targeting teenage boys, as well as adults, and that some of those young people have become “slaves” to the habit.
1917: Phone companies in Toledo announce that telephone operators will no longer give out election results to callers.
1923: Federal agents seize a large brewery at Fassett and Oak Streets which was licensed to make near-beer, but the brewery was selling it before the alcohol was steamed off.
1925: A large searchlight on the Toledo Trust building in downtown Toledo is set up to signal the results of the election by flashing various patterns of lights for results of votes. The key to those signals is published in the Toledo News Bee.
1930: Toledo police patrolman Sam Vole is wounded by a buckshot during a gun battle with safe crackers inside the Brown Pharmacy on Bancroft Street.
1957: Oregon officially becomes a city.
2006: Nicholas Huenefeld, a Lake High School graduate and now editor-in-chief of The Press, appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to drink a bottle of ketchup as part of the show’s “Don’t Try This at Home” segment. A trick learned through a $5 bet with friends at Ralphie’s, his ketchup drinking trick also eventually led to two appearances in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and an appearance on Breakfast Television in Toronto.
Nov. 4
1887: One man is killed and 10 others are thrown into the Maumee River following a bridge collapse in Grand Rapids.
1913: Furniture dealer Chris Finkbeiner is elected mayor of Perrysburg.
1944: The U.S. war department seizes control of seven factories in Toledo because strikes at the plants are stopping the flow of ammo and guns.
1958: Michael V. Disalle of Toledo is elected governor of Ohio.
1960: Twenty-five thousand people gather at the Lucas County Courthouse as U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy visits Toledo for a campaign rally.
1971: The popular Smith’s Cafeteria on Erie Street closes down after decades in business.
1978: The Esquire Theater, the last remaining movie house in downtown Toledo, closes its doors. In its final years, it had started showing only adult movies.
Nov. 5
1830: Wood County executes convicted killer George Porter by hanging. He is the first man to be executed in the county after being convicted of shooting to death Isaac Richardson for non-payment of his labor.
1895: Ohio women get to vote for the first time in the state, and Maybelle Meyers is the first woman to ever cast a ballot in Genoa.
1920: The first edition of The Sun in East Toledo is published, becoming a news staple of the Eastside for many decades before it closed operations in the 1970s.
1946: Convicted postal robber and notorious gangster Joe Urbaytis is gunned down and killed at his Bon-Aire Supper Club, an illegal speakeasy that was located at 2188 Woodville Road at the time. The gun used in the killing, which had been owned by a Toledo police detective, is reported missing.
1952: The first of 600 Ohio state prison inmates arrive at Camp Perry's POW camp to be housed temporarily after the state penitentiary in Columbus was gutted by a major riot and fire.
1956: World-renowned jazz pianist and Toledo native Art Tatum dies at age of 46 in Los Angeles.
1960: Edward Hagedorn is elected as the first mayor of Oregon.
Nov. 6
1908: The Toledo school board proposes that schools begin serving hot breakfasts to the growing number of students who come to school hungry.
1923: Toledo is in the grip of fear from a “mad bomber” who has detonated six bombs in the city since September. In the latest bombing, at Grand and Forrest, a mailbox was destroyed and windows were shattered.
1927: The Beach House shelter for women reports its busiest month ever in October, providing emergency shelter to 90 women. The Beach House was started in 1921 for women in urgent need of housing.
1941: A stone marker is dedicated on Miami Street to note the presence of an ancient Native American fort. Early pioneers had found the remnants of the earthworks at a location near the present-day grain elevators and Fassett Street.
1945: J.B. Simmons becomes the first African American elected to Toledo City Council.
2003: The wind turbines in Bowling Green begin providing electricity as the first large scale wind project of its kind in Northwest Ohio.
Nov. 7
1905: It’s reported that hopes have been dimmed on a promising pool of oil that was thought to be in the Genoa area of Clay Township. Drillers had been hoping they might find a large reservoir of oil near a rich well on Peter Schessler’s farm in Allen Township, but they have not found it so far.
1907: Toledo police report they have captured a "wild man" who had been living along the banks of Ten Mile Creek near the Pope Motor plant and terrorizing nearby residents. Frank Gorware, unshaven and wild looking, eats mostly raw meat.
1933: National prohibition is repealed, and many area taverns begin selling low power beer.
1956: The Great Eastern Shopping Center opens in Northwood on Woodville Road. This “cash and carry” mecca boasted over 60 stores, all on an 87-acre site that also beheld a parking lot that could accommodate 5,000 cars.
1958: President Eisenhower arrives in Toledo to go duck hunting along the Lake Erie shoreline at the private Cedar Point Club. Ike bags his limit of mallards within three hours, returns to his plane, and departs by noon.
2001: Jack Ford is elected as the first African American mayor of Toledo, defeating Lucas County treasurer Ray Kest.
Nov. 8
1905: Lawyer and journalist Brand Whitlock is elected Mayor of Toledo, defeating incumbent Mayor Finch by 4,000 votes. Whitlock, running as an independent, would be elected three times and later appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium during World War I.
1918: The Toledo area is deeply affected by the Spanish flu epidemic. Five thousand people become ill and 242 deaths are reported. The newly elected sheriff of Lucas County, Frank McKindley, is so sick he doesn't even know he was elected and dies a few days later.
1936: Toledo policeman Harvey “Inky” O’Neill chases after a speeding taxi on his motorcycle and fatally collides with a car at Bancroft and Monroe Streets.
1953: A 12-acre site on Navarre Avenue at Wheeling in Oregon is the site of a dedication for the newly constructed St. Charles Hospital, which will be operated by the Sisters of Mercy and serve Toledo’s east side. The new 200-bed hospital will also feature a pediatric wing with 50 beds for children.
