Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
June 15
1921: Funeral services held for Tony Wroblewski, the first Toledo soldier to die in combat in World War I. Final honors are paid at St. Anthony’s parish.
1926: The city of Toledo is drenched in a heavy deluge of rain and thunderstorms, causing flooding and heavy damage. The News Bee estimates that some 3.7 million tons of rain fell on the city during the one-and-a-half-inch downpour.
1943: Comedian Bob Hope does his national radio show from Camp Perry near Port Clinton.
1944: The Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded to Lucas County’s Lt. Robert Craig for his heroic actions in the war in Italy. The medal is presented to his father, William. The Craig Bridge would later be named in his honor.
1979: "The Hinkle Tree" is planted on Inverness Golf Course during the U.S. Open after golfer Lon Hinkle and five other pros took a short cut around the 8th fairway to cut 80 yards off the hole. A tree was planted to block the path of the shortcut.
June 16
1879: It’s reported in several publications that a woman in Tiffin, Ohio was completely disrobed when she was hit by lightning.
1919: Ohio ratifies a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.
1931: Greyhound Steamer offers moonlight cruises at Toledo for 50 cents.
1934: The area park board says the wooded tract of land being developed into a park east of Toledo on Starr Avenue will be called Pearson Park to honor George Pearson, the long-time Toledo Blade reporter who championed the site as a possible public park.
1953: Toledo comedian Danny Thomas appears at Toledo Zoo Amphitheater for a special event and receives a glass key to the city.
1963: A gun-toting duo ties two Toledo police detectives to a tree and then steals a Perrysburg police car. They are later caught in a dramatic car chase.
June 17
1850: A tragedy plays out on Lake Erie as the steamer, “GP Griffith,” burns in Eastern Lake Erie with hundreds of people on board, including the Perrysburg captain and his family, who also perish in the inferno.
1915: General Furniture in 1300 block of Dorr Street advertises a brand new steel bed with springs and mattress for $6.10.
1929: Local police and dry agents fear that as more rum smugglers are being driven from the Detroit area that Toledo may become to the new hub of illegal liquor trade with many new rum boats being spotted in the harbors near Toledo and Maumee Bay.
1931: Security Home Trust Bank in Toledo fails. It would be the first of six local banks to collapse in the Great Depression.
1946: Marcy Carolyn Kaptur is born in Toledo. She later becomes Toledo’s Congresswoman for the Ninth District of Ohio. She is reelected to Congress for over 40 years of service.
1954: Junk picker James Thomas of Toledo finds a $1,000 bill in a trash pile at Pontiac and Cherry Streets.
1965: Toledo defense attorney David Schnorf, while demonstrating to a jury how dull the blade was on his client’s alleged weapon, ran a knife over the back of his hand to show that it wouldn’t cut flesh. Instead, the blade drew a bead of red blood from the attorney’s hand and court was adjourned while his hand was bandaged.
1977: The women’s jail at the Safety Building is shut down.
June 18
1912: Toledo teacher Anna Stapleton is fired from her job as a teacher at Hoag School when she complains that conditions at the school are unhealthy and have contributed to the illnesses of many children.
1924: The famous and aging Indian Elm tree is cut down in Maumee. The tree reportedly was used by Indian snipers to target soldiers at Fort Meigs across the river.
1925: Two promising aircraft designers working for the Toledo Aircraft Company, Anton DePauli and Maurits DeVos, are killed during a rare test flight of a new plane during a fog shrouded night in Toledo. The plane went down in the Pennsylvania rail yards in Toledo. One pilot’s new bride tells reporters she had a premonition that the plane would crash.
1935: The News Bee reports that two area boys landed a 36-inch, 11-pound muskellunge while fishing on the Maumee River.
1945: Genoa’s “chicken king” John Reinbolt says he was mobbed by shoppers at a Detroit market as hungry shoppers swarmed around him and “roughed him up” to buy over a 600 chickens and 500 dozen eggs. He says some of them figured out where he lived and drove to Genoa to buy his remaining 1,200 chickens. He now says he can’t sell pigeon meat because he was forced to sell his breeding stock.
1975: The last edition of the Toledo Times is published.
1979: The General James Blair Steedman statue in Riverside Park is hit by a car and badly damaged. It is repaired and restored.
1983: The One Government Center Building is named for Michael DiSalle, the former Toledo mayor and Ohio governor.
June 19
1896: North Baltimore police officer Jesse Baker is shot and killed in a gun battle on that community's Main Street.
1911: Longtime Toledo artist William Henry Machen dies at the age of 79. Born in Holland, Machen was a world famous painter of landscapes and animals, and he lived much of his life in Toledo. A street is named for him in the Old West End.
1919: The Sunday School Association of Ohio votes to condemn the upcoming Dempsey-Willard boxing match in Toledo, calling it harmful to moral values and a desecration of the July 4th holiday.
1924: A family of six from Sandusky is killed when their car hits a Lake Shore Interurban trolley west of Genoa.
1938: Ten-thousand people jam Toledo Municipal Airport to watch a demonstration of powered model airplanes.
1943: Toledo police raid the Cole Bros. Circus and round up 23 kids who had "runaway with the circus." The 22 boys and one girl, ages 15-17, were making $11 a week.
1975: An oil tank farm fire erupts into an inferno in southern Wood County near Cygnet. It was visible for miles and took days before it eventually burned itself out. Such fires were very commonplace in the Wood County oil fields through the decades.
June 20
1911: Three-thousand Toledo area women join a letter writing campaign to protest the impending execution of a pregnant mother, Angelina Napolitano, in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. The sentence of the condemned mother is eventually commuted to life.
1949: The “new” City Park swimming pool at City Park and Nebraska Avenues is opened for first time. Over 4,000 attend dedication ceremonies.
1955: The last of the veteran housing projects in Toledo is demolished as the Woodsdale Veteran Housing complex is torn down. They were temporary housing projects for returning veterans from World War II. That site is later used for Woodsdale Park.
1967: Future NHL hockey player, Pat Jablonski, is born in Toledo. The goaltender played for several teams between 1987 and 1998.
June 21
1890: The Daily Sentinel first published in Bowling Green.
1918: The new Mercy Hospital in Toledo opens its doors to patients.
1929: Willow Beach Park at Point Place holds its grand opening, offering rides, picnic groves, a bathing beach and dance pavilion. It was shut down in 1949 and later became the Cullen Park boat launch area.
1941: The publisher of the Toledo Blade and other papers, Paul Block, dies at his home in New York City.
1985: Lucas County Sheriff James Telb and a team of deputies begin digging with backhoes for as many as 75 bodies the sheriff had been told were buried in satanic rituals in western Lucas County. Despite massive national media attention, nothing is found except for a few animal bones.
