Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
May 3
1838: The first church building opens in Toledo at the corner of Superior and Cherry.
1842: The city of Toledo builds a new fire station on Summit between Adams and Cherry Streets.
1903: Tragedy strikes a large group of Polish tourists from Toledo when many of them are run over by a locomotive in Detroit. Hundreds of people had been waiting on the tracks for the return train to Toledo. Nine people are killed and scores are injured.
1917: A mysterious airplane circled the downtown Toledo area, sending thousands into the streets and blocking traffic. The plane eventually flew west. The U.S. Army says it can explain whose plane it was.
1919: Three rum runners drown as they try to cross Lake Erie during a heavy thunderstorm. Their launch washed up on Toledo Beach with 60 cases of whiskey aboard but no sign of the three men who were apparently trying to navigate from Detroit to Toledo.
1954: Grant Murray Field at Waite High School is dedicated.
1966: WDHO-TV Channel 24, owned by Daniel H. Overmyer, begins broadcasting in Toledo as city’s third commercial TV station. It would later become WNWO-TV.
May 4
1910: Toledo is now listed as the fourth largest rail center in the U.S. behind Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago.
1917: Future Toledo mayor Addison Thacher is shot and wounded in an attempt to stop a suspect holding the police chief and a detective at gunpoint. Thacher, a contractor at the time, was shot through the ear. He survived and would become mayor in 1932.
1934: Machine gun toting bandits, including outlaw John Dillinger, shoot four people in a daylight bank robbery in Fostoria.
1944: As part of the war conservation effort, Toledo hotels and restaurants continue observing two meatless days per week.
1970: Toledoans are shocked by the shooting deaths of four students and protesters at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen.
May 5
1813: Hundreds of Kentucky militiamen, under the command of Colonel William Dudley, are killed near Maumee River by Native Americans who had lured them into an ambush during the siege of Ft. Meigs in the War of 1812. Dudley and at least 220 militiamen are killed.
1883: The first professional baseball game is played in Toledo as the Toledo Blue Stockings beat Bay City, 5-4, in 10 innings. The game was played at League Park at Monroe and 15th Streets.
1904: More than 8,000 people attend the launching of the passenger ship Indianapolis at the Craig Shipyards in Toledo. Women used axes to sever the ropes that launched the craft into the Maumee waters, which was advertised as the first-ever all women’s launch ceremony.
1908: Toledo police officer James Boyle is ambushed and killed while looking for suspects near downtown Toledo.
1919: A strike begins at the Willys Overland and Auto-Lite factories. Seven-thousand members of the Toledo Auto Trades Council called for the work action after failed wage talks. Glass workers would later join in, and deadly violence would erupt. More than 17,000 workers were out.
1924: Toledo post office robbery suspects Joe and Frank Urbaytis, who escaped from the Lucas County Jail in 1921, are recaptured near Columbus. Joe Urbaytis is wounded in a shootout with police, but he recovers and is returned to Toledo for trial.
1938: A four-alarm fire takes place in downtown Toledo in the 500 block of Summit Street at the Lane's clothing store and an A&P grocery.
1944: Toledo motorcycle policeman Fred Disel is killed at Monroe and 17th Streets while pursuing a hit skip vehicle. Disel was chasing the suspect’s car when he tried to avoid hitting two soldiers walking on Monroe Street. The crash also killed one of the soldiers.
2005: It’s the end of an era as the Showcase Cinemas on Secor close for good after being in operation since 1964. It was Toledo’s first theater to offer 70mm first-run features.
May 6
1919: Three Toledo police patrolmen confess to robbing some $5,000 worth of contraband whiskey from a storeroom on Summit Street. They used four other men to pull off the heist. They lost their jobs while also receiving severe punishment and a lecture from Mayor Schreiber.
1922: The Carranor Hunt and Polo Club opens in Perrysburg.
1932: Toledo residents are shocked by the brutal murder of a young woman in the Old West End. Winifred Rafferty, a dietician at Robinwood Hospital, was on her way to work when she was assaulted. Police round up the “usual degenerates” for questioning.
1934: Two people are killed and 18 are injured when a "Great Eastern Stages" bus crashes near Clyde on US 20. The driver was reported to have been drinking.
1945: The USS Toledo, a heavy cruiser, is launched by the U.S. Navy as CA-133 from the Camden New Jersey Shipyards. Many dignitaries from Toledo are on hand for the ceremonies, and the captain is given a silver tea set for the officers' galley as a gift from the citizens of Toledo.
May 7
1813: The first siege of Ft. Meigs concludes as American troops withstand a week-long bombardment of cannon fire and an ambush slaughter of hundreds of American troops on the Maumee River. The Americans persevere and turn back the British troops and Native American warriors.
1902: Tragedy on the Maumee River occurs when seven young church members on a Sunday school outing drown after a tugboat hits their boat near the Ironville docks. The inquiry into the night-time accident lasted for months. The funeral for the victims was the largest such event in the city's history as thousands of mourners converged on Forest Cemetery.
1915: The great British passenger ship, Lusitania, is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland. Two Toledo passengers, William Homewood of Monroe Street and Larry Linley of Platt Street, were among the 1,100 people who died when the giant ship slipped to the bottom of the sea.
1917: An Interurban head-on crash occurs on the Lakeshore Electric tracks, injuring more than 20 people near Gibsonburg.
1931: Singer Teresa Brewer is born in Toledo as Teresa Breuer. She rises to national stardom in 1950 with pop hit “Music, Music, Music.” She would later go on to record numerous top-ten hit songs.
1941: Willys-Overland shows off its first vehicle called the "Jeep." It is one of 1,300 prototypes being built for the Army prior to World War II. The Toledo-built vehicle would become an icon and an enduring brand synonymous with the city of Toledo.
1975: The historic Tiedtke’s Department Store on Summit Street erupts into a massive inferno of flames, destroying the building and several others. The blaze marks the fiery end of a long time Toledo retail tradition.
1975: The Toledo Goaldiggers capture the International Hockey League’s Turner Cup.
May 8
1843: The Wabash and Erie Canal opens from Toledo to Fort Wayne, Ind.
1930: Toledo police engage in a fierce gun battle with three members of the "Dorr Street Gang" at a farmhouse on Dorr Street. Over 30 shots were fired and gangster Claude Allen was shot dead.
1945: V-E Day arrives. Germany surrenders. Noisy demonstrations and celebrations spill out into the streets of the city. The Blade describes it as "bedlam" as adding machine tape and toilet paper rolls are draped from the tall office buildings downtown, while honking cars and jubilant pedestrians jam the streets and sidewalks.
May 9
1912: A dental curiosity is being studied in Toledo as 400 dentists meet to see the silver filling in the tooth of 6-year-old boy, a filling that he was reportedly born with. John Schnittker's mother says the molar emerged from his gum with a silver filling already in it.
1916: The city announces that the new Bay View Golf Course will be ready for play by the first of June. The nine-hole course will be the second municipal golf course in Toledo.
1922: A gang of armed men attack former Walbridge School principal Otto Tracy for alleged crimes against boys at the school. Tracy is wounded by gunfire in the attack by 17 men at a home in Bowling Green.
1931: Some 65,000 Toledo school kids are engaged in a week-long city clean-up campaign, picking up rubbish, cleaning backyards, tearing down old buildings, painting fire escapes, and eradicating fire hazards.
1969: Toledo Municipal Court Judge Clyde Deeds refuses to marry a 21-year-old couple in his courtroom because he says there was “too much levity” going on. The bride is left in tears, but Judge Reno Riley saves the day and marries the couple.
