Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Oct. 19
1901: Toledo oil investors strike a big gusher in the Wood County community of Haskins, where they hit a well that immediately produces 700 barrels of crude oil on the Chauncey Parker Farm.
1906: Toledo has reported 110 cases of typhoid fever so far this month, and a new study shows that with costs for physicians, nurses, and lost wages, the cost to the city will be about $60,000.
1910: Toledo Scale is in full operation. Reports indicate massive sales and offices in 50 cities.
1929: The largest gas well is struck near Tiffin. The well on the Homer Martin farm is said to be releasing three million cubic feet of gas a day and some quantities of oil.
1943: The war department reports that 43 Ohio service members are missing in action from both the European and Pacific theaters. Eleven of the men are from the Toledo area.
1944: The VFW post in Port Clinton demands an investigation into the POW detention facility at Camp Perry in Ottawa County. The veteran’s group wants to know why the Italian prisoners being held there seem to be getting much better treatment than American POW’s being held in Italy.
1951: Six-thousand Electric Auto-Lite workers go on strike against factories in Toledo, resulting in the first major action against the company since the tragic Auto-Lite strike in 1934 that resulted in riots and deaths.
Oct. 20
1910: A Hocking Valley Railway train en route to Toledo derails near Upper Sandusky. Two female passengers are crushed to death and 14 others are injured when cars plunge down a 15-foot embankment.
1915: Lucas County Clerk of Courts John Kelly goes on trial for embezzling thousands of dollars from the county.
1922: The tragic suicide of 22-year-old Marie Wolf takes place in the Tavern Hotel on St. Clair Street. She was involved in a love triangle with jockey Willie Cohn from New York and another woman, and Wolf ended her life in Cohn's Hotel room.
1937: The oil tanker, “The Argo,” sinks north of Kelleys Island. Two-hundred-thousand gallons of oil are aboard and have to be pumped off.
1944: Toledoans are stunned by news reports from Cleveland, where a gas plant explosion kills 130 people.
2000: Groundbreaking ceremonies are held for Fifth Third Field, the baseball stadium to be built in downtown Toledo for the Mud Hens.
Oct. 21
1872: Toledo businessman and futurist, Jesup Scott, deeds 160 acres of land to Toledo for a new university.
1883: Woodlawn Cemetery in West Toledo is dedicated.
1925: General Isaac Sherwood, a longtime Toledo congressman, Civil War officer, and newspaper publisher, dies at 90 years of age, just months after retiring.
1958: Ottawa River School in Point Place is dedicated.
1960: Cuban Army Major, William Morgan "El Commandante" of Toledo, is arrested by Fidel Castro for espionage in Cuba. He would be executed two years later. His wife, Olga, later moves to Toledo to live out her life and works to have her husband's name cleared and his body returned to the U.S.
1965: Ten-thousand dollars worth of fur coats are stolen by thieves who broke into Lamson’s Department Store in downtown Toledo.
Oct. 22
1908: Giant mosquitoes as large as houseflies are reported to be stinging people on the lips in the Findlay area. Two women stung the night before have had their eyes swollen shut.
1925: Mail theft is reported at Toledo’s Union Station when thousands of dollars in securities and bond certificates are stolen from the mailroom.
1927: The artist sketch of Genoa’s proposed new high school building is revealed and excitement is building. A special meeting is announced to inform residents about the plans for the new school.
1932: President Herbert Hoover makes a campaign stop in Toledo as more than 20,000 Toledo residents jam Union Station to see the president.
1941: Colony Theater opens on Central Avenue with a special premiere event and celebration. Admission for adults is 35 cents, while children get in for 15 cents. The first movie shown is "When Ladies Meet" with Robert Taylor and Joan Crawford.
1950: A miniature bronze “Statue of Liberty” is dedicated in front of Camp Miakonda along Sylvania Avenue. The replica is 1/19 life-size.
Oct. 23
1855: St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo is started by the Grey Nuns of Montreal, Quebec.
1923: The “death defying” Tom Mix stars at the Alhambra Theater in Toledo in “Desert Love,” a “ripsnortin, spine-tingling, breathtaking tale of the grand and glorious old West” that rivals the other movies “for red-blooded romance,” so says the movie's ad department.
1926: A 17-year-old boy that was bitten by a rattlesnake on Turner Street near his home is being released from the hospital. It is the second rattler bite in Toledo in about a month.
1941: A Toledo tugboat capsizes in the Detroit River. Six crew members, three of them from Toledo, drown.
1953: The Toledo Metropolitan Housing Authority votes to end segregation policies within its housing units.
1955: St. Francis de Sales High School is dedicated on Bancroft.
Oct. 24
1895: A Native American burial mound is opened on the farm of writer Henry Niles, east of Toledo near the lake shore and near present-day Maumee Bay State Park. News accounts say 20 skeletons are discovered, sitting in a circle and around them are a variety of Native American tools, beads, and pots.
1926: Toledo schoolteacher Lily Croy is murdered, becoming the latest victim of so called “Toledo Clubber.”
1943: Babe the Elephant, the Toledo Zoo's most famous animal, suffers a stroke and is put to sleep. His remains are rendered for wartime munitions, and his skull is preserved and remains at the Toledo Zoo.
Oct. 25
1895: Marshal August Schultz of Tiffin is shot and killed in a scuffle with a gunman in rural Seneca County. The suspect is convicted and sentenced to hang, but was later released from prison before ultimately dying in a fall from a rooftop.
1902: A typhoid outbreak is reported on Lagrange Street between Erie and Huron. Residents say 15 people are stricken, and they blame the city for not keeping the sewers from backing up into water vaults.
1918: The Spanish flu outbreak continues to affect thousands of people in the Toledo area. In Woodville, more than 48 cases have been counted with one death reported. Several Woodville soldiers on duty at Camp Chase in Columbus are also very ill. The town of Curtice is also heavily impacted with 100s of cases and several deaths, including a 15-year-old boy and a young farmer who were about to go harvest corn when he fell ill and suddenly died.
1940: Tank Motor Sales in Williston is advertising the new 1941 Hudson for a modest sum of just $695.
1941: The abandoned Interurban trolley bridge near Waterville returns to service as a highway bridge over the Maumee River, becoming a temporary span for the main bridge in Waterville that collapsed.
1960: Rossford businessman Frank Emmick is sentenced to 30 years in prison in Cuba after being convicted of espionage.
