Toledo Showman Leaves Legacy in Lights

When Toledo was still in its adolescence as a city and flexing its Midwestern muscle in the world of industry and commerce, it required leaders with vision. And in the early years of the 20th century, it could be argued that Toledo had no shortage of such ambitious visionaries. Mayor Samuel Jones, Brand Whitlock, The Lamson and Tietdke brothers,  John Gunckel, Edward D. Libbey,  Michael Owens, Edward Ford  or suffragette Rosa Segur, Inventor Lyman Spitzer, and developer George Ketcham.   There are many others and the list is lengthy of those who left heavy footprints on the city’s pathway to the industrial and social future.  Public entertainment and theatre were also a key part of life in the city in those years and one man, Frank Burt, played a major role in creating venues where hard working Toledoans could find a few hours of relaxation and laughs.  Unlike many,  Burt’s legacy did not fade away with the decades. Even though his name has largely been lost in the dust of time, his venues continue to live on and and his creations continue to entertain. Frank, the son of a Confederate officer was born in Louisiana and his birth name was Frank Burton Fulenwider, but his father, frowned on Frank entering the world of showbusiness and forbade him to use the family name, so Frank became Frank Burt. In the 1890’s Frank came to Toledo almost penniless, but soon landed a job as manager of the Casino theater near Point Place and within time, his eager ambition made him a successful showman as owner of numerous theaters and entertainment venues nationwide. Ever the showman, he would became the focal point of his own melodrama that almost shortened his career and legacy. On a warm spring night in May of 1904,  he was shot and gravely wounded by his irate wife in front of his theater, the Burt Theater at Jefferson and Ontario.

The Burt Theater as it stands today on Jefferson

Addie Burt had pulled up in her carraige, and saw him talking with a man under the marquee of the theater and she wanted Frank to go inside the theater where they could talk. Frank refused. It was then she reached into the folds of her dress and withdrew a small pistol and opened fire on Frank. One of the bullets went through a cheek and exited out his eye socket, She hurried away and while Burt, who was still able to move, ran to a nearby saloon for help.  Frank later said that Addie shot him because she suspected he was having an affair with another woman. Earlier that morning he had served her with divorce papers.

The young Burt would later recover from his wounds, but the marriage didn’t survive. And ironically while Frank managed to live, six months later Addie Burt died of sudden brain inflammation.

That turn of events allowed to Frank to marry the young showgirl, Candace Morgan, with whom he was indeed having an affair.  That wedlock and his marriage to his ambitions as a theater promoter lived on for another two decades.

At the time of the shooting Frank Burt, a former Vaudevillian himself, was listed in the papers as owning more than eight theaters around the country including the Burt and Lyceum Theaters in Toledo, and other theaters in Ft. Wayne, Lima, Evansville, Youngstown and other cities in the area.

The Casino, circa 1900, Burt was part owner

He was also a part owner of the Toledo Casino at Point Place and had an investment in the newest amusement park on Lake Erie, called Cedar Point in Sandusky.

As for the Burt Theater in Toledo, he opened it in 1898 as a copy of a 15th century Venetian palace complete with a row of ornate gothic columns and balconies.

The 1565 seat theater also featured an extra wide row called a “fat man’s row”.

Patrons were offered a variety of daily shows of early Vaudeville performances and melodramas, but like many “live” theaters of its era, the popularity was eclipsed by the growth of moving picture houses.

In 1907, Frank Burt would have another brush with death, suffering painful injuries when he was trying to crank his automobile and it jumped into gear and pinned him against a light pole crushing his legs.

After healing and regaining his strength, Burt left Toledo in `1908 and moved into new areas of theatrical interest to pursue even greater achievements.

He was by most measure, a master showman and creative and enterprising amusement park manager and his reputation became legendary across the nation.

Lakside Amusement Park near Denver

By 1912, he was managing the popular Lakeside Amusement Park in the bustling city of Denver, and a few years later, he began dividing his time between Denver and California when he took the role as concessions manager of the Pan American Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.

After the Exposition, Burt moved south to the coastal town of Seal Beach California where he developed and managed the Seal Beach Amusement Park, or “Joy Zone” in California which opened in 1916.

The Joy Zone at Panama Expo in 1915

His colorful presence there left an indelible impression on the town he is remembered fondly by local historians.

One of his claims to fame was the promotion of dare-devil air stunts including wing walkers, and aerobatic performers.

Some of his projects still live to this day as a legacy to his talents and vision, Cedar Point, The Lakeside Amusement Park near Denver and the still standing theater building that bears his name in Toledo, the Burt Theater.

After those ventures in California, like many at the time, Burt was bitten with the “movie” bug. He and his wife moved north to the San Francisco area to start a movie colony in that part of the state. But after a few ill-fated movies and bouts of illness. Burt’s star would no longer rise.

Frank Burt died in 1924.

But the old Burt theater did not die. In later years, it inspired a new showman for Toledo.

As downtown Toledo evolved, the old Burt theater would find a new life as the home venue for another great showman. Duane Abbajay. Duane took the reigns of the theater in 1962 when it was the very popular Peppermint Club where Jerry Lee Lewis would amaze audiences with his energy and musical prowess. Abbajay brought in many top acts, including Chubby Checker, Little Richard and the Everly Brothers. 

But as Duane saw the rising popularity of country music in the 1970’s, he took the theater in another direction and the club became the Country Palace and would fill the venue by booking top country acts of the day including Waylon Jennings.  It also earned a national claim to fame by being mentioned in Kenny Roger’s famous ballad “Lucille”.  Set in a “bar room in Toledo across the from depot”, the song’s creator Hal Bynum is reputed to have witnessed a scene at the Palace one day that inspired the song’s story.

After Abbajay sold the club, 725 Jefferson became a popular drag show venue known as Ceaser’s Show Bar. The operation and reputation of Ceaser’s flourished for well over a decade before, its lights were dimmed by time and an out of control city bus that rammed the front entrance. It was the proverbial show stopper.

 There was talk about tearing the building down, but thankfully rational heads prevailed. Its history and architectural features were saved from the wrecking ball of progress by those who recognized that it still had value and good bones. The county’s Land Bank took control in 2013 and it has since been rescued by a new owner who has plans for preserving this historic treasure of Toledo for future use.  Stayed tuned. The old Burt Theater at Ontario and Jefferson may yet have a new life and somewhere Frank Burt is smiling.

The Hidden Corners of Toledo’s Past

THE WEIRD THINGS THAT NEVER MAKE IT INTO THE HISTORY BOOKS

Most stories that become documented as “history” are usually those stories that detail the “important”, events of our area’s timeline.  Normally, we memorialize the benchmarks of the past deemed worthy of remembrance. The formation of our governance, the stories of major wars, the evolution of society and economies and those key people who were stewards of that change.

What is left out and often kicked the margins of time, however, is often the “good stuff”.  The odd ball, the strange, the mysterious, the weird, the contradictions, and sometimes events that just defy logic, convention and laws of nature. The stories the history books forgot.

Here are a few from Northwest Ohio that may challenge your beliefs about our past and any notion you had that Toledo and the area did not have an interesting past.

Toledo Architect designs a Penitentiary Made of Glass

In 1916, Toledo was pretty proud of its reputation as the Glass Capital of the World. So proud that Toledo architects Schreiber an Beelman thought that building a prison completely out of glass was a novel and practical concept. So the plans were drawn up and submitted to the state commission that was considering plans for a new state prison. According the news reports, sociologists thought it was also a good idea.  By using a combination of glass and brick for the cells, the prison could be circular in design and a guard station would be located in the center so one guard could see into the cells from that center point and monitor what was happening.  While it might have been a novel idea, the prison commission apparently had other plans and the dream of a glass prison for Toledo was shattered quickly.

“House of Mystery on Collingwood”

In 1934, the reporters were quick to label it “the House of Mystery”. And that it was. At 1218 Collingwod Blvd, a series of strange events occurred and police were left to wonder what had happened there.  On July the 18^th, a resident of the home, 65 year old Platt Tucker who  often rode a bicycle vanished and police were looking everywhere to find him. It seems as he fell out of sight, police found his 59-year sister, Elma, in a side-yard, unconscious after having been pushed out of an attic window. Fingerprints found in the dust of the windowsill indicate she may have hung there a long time before falling the ground.  During the course of helping her, Police then found a 61 year old sister, Alma, chained to a bed post in a second floor bedroom. The mother and father died about a year before. Police say the house was in a terrible state of disrepair and cleanliness and Alma was not only chained to the bed but had been provided only scraps of bread to eat off the floor.  Platt Tucker, the missing brother returned home the night police discovered the scene, but Tucker managed to slip through their guardposts and made his way off into the darkness.

Eccentric Mystery Man Dies at Toledo State Hospital

All the staff knew about Lynn Johnson was that he had lived at the hospital for 27 years after being admitted for a minor ailment in 1900. But the eccentric Johnson died in a four story fall from a rooftop at the hospital on February 28, 1927. Johnson, it was said never wanted to leave the hospital and stayed on for almost three decades, earning his keep by doing handyman work. He never revealed to anyone where he came from or why he liked living there. He saved all of his money and gave over $600 to the campaign fund to save the hospital.  When children would be discharged from the hospital he would give them a $2 bill in a wooden frame that he had crafted.

Toledo Man is Builder of Lincoln’s Funeral Car

In 1865  Myron Lamson Toledo had a big job to complete.  He had been put in charge of designing and building President Lincoln’s new presidential railroad car, the  “Air Force One” of its day. As the car was nearing completion, in April of 1865, Mr. Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington.  Now, it was Mr. Lamson’s duty to convert the car into a funeral car for the dead president.  With Mr. Lincoln’s body to be carried from Washington on a special 180 city tour across the nation to its final resting place in Illinois, the 42-year old Lamson, an enlisted man in the Union Army had little time to spare to prepare for this historic and final trip for Mr. Lincoln.

Myron Lamson

It would be the only time Lincoln would be aboard his special car.  The train would bear not only Lincoln’s coffin, but that of his beloved son Willie who had died in 1862. His body had been disinterred in Washington so that it could be buried alongside his father’s in Illinois. And if you recognize the name, Lamson, Myron Lamson was the father of Julius and Charles Lamson who started Lamson’s department store in Toledo. Mryon Lamson would later work for his sons at the store.

Boys in Findlay Boys Find Treasure In a Bird’s Nest

In April of 1888, Three or four boys were playing on the Toledo, Columbus and Southern Railroad bridge in Findlay when they discovered a bird’s nest in the roof of the bridge, which they proceeded to investigate, On reaching the nest they were astonished to find, instead of eggs, a silk handkerchief in the nest.  Without delay, they unwrapped it and found thirty-six solid gold rings, the cheapest of which jewelers say, was worth $5. It made the value of the find not less than $200. How this could be, did it really happen or where the rings might have come from is all food for thought. But strange food indeed.

Strange Wild Beast Roaming Wood County

Back in 1902 when oil well derricks studded the landscape of Wood County, there was a boom town called Mermill. One of many such towns that today are little more than a memory and the name of a road.

Oil wells of Wood County circa 1900

In those days, there were plenty of hardships to contend with in the rural community, but one of them was for awhile was a mystery. Some of the locals began to report that there was a strange beast roaming the area at night and terrorizing the citizens and the animals. The local farmers say it was about six feet long and dark in color. Whatever the beast might be it was killing some cattle and a $50 reward was offered for its capture and scalp.  Other reports indicate it not just is a danger to livestock but the beast would hide in the underbrush and then leap out at unsuspecting children with an “unearthly scream”.

Toledo Street Walkers Declare Themselves to Be Orphans

One morning in February of 1901, Toledo Police Judge James Austin had brought before him, ten young women of the street who were accused to accosting men in the downtown area and offering their services.  When

the judge asked for their names, they all claimed to be orphans and did not know their names.  The court room was filled with snickers. One of the girls laughed loudly and between giggles, started laughing so loudly it was contagious and soon every in the room was laughing including the judge. And the amiable Judge Austin must have ben affected by the hilarity as he told the girls that all the charges were being dismissed. He instructed them that if they were going to accost men, they should do it on streets that aren’t so prominent and where it wouldn’t be so public.

The Name Game of Street Characters

Nicknames are not unusual among those characters who are well known on the streets and who find often themselves at odds with the law. Sometimes, the names their mothers awarded them at birth at were largely forgotten as they answer to their earned names. Such was case as a group of “frequent flyers” stood before the police court Toledo one hot August morning in 1915.  They bore such monikers as “Beehive Eddy”, “Red Shirt”, “Scarry Jack”, “Creosote Jim” and “Equator”. I’m sure there is a story behind all of those names and wouldn’t you like to know them?

One of Toledo’s Forgotten Stars: June MacCloy

Had  movie actress June Mary MacCloy lived, she would have been 104 this year and she would have had some wonderful stories to tell.  Sadly, MacCloy passed away back in 2005 and it is strange, but when she died,  few in Toledo probably knew it. There was a small obit printed in the Blade(ten days later)and one line referencing her early life in Toledo.  Yes, June MacCloy, was a Toledo girl. A Toledo girl who made good, both on the stages of Broadway and under the lights of Hollywood.  A statuesque blond actress who epitomized the glamour era of Hollywood and who probably could have and should have made an even bigger name for herself.   The Scott High School graduate was also blessed(or cursed, some would say)with an unusual singing voice —  so deep and rich and husky that it was very manly, but very good.  Still, there were critics who believed that her voice was a liability and there were always rumors that she was a lesbian which during that era of more provincial sexual morality, may have also affected her career.

Her last movie appearance was in the Marx Brothers’ comedy Go West , released in 1940.   Cast as the saloonkeeper, this Toledo native was said to be  “a worthy match” for the inimitable talents of Groucho Marx who greeted  her in one scene saying: “Lulubelle! I didn’t recognize you standing up”. To which she replied, with hands on her hips saying, “Vamoosh, you goose.” And then croons on stage, ” You Can’t Argue with Love”. MacCloy as Lulubelle in Go West (1941)

June Mary MacCloy’s story began just north of the Indiana state line in Sturgis, Michigan, where she was born on June 2 1909. Her family, however moved to Toledo when she was still a girl, to a home in the 1400 block of Franklin Avenue  It was here that she was raised and matured into  a tall and good looking girl who could turn heads with her striking beauty and a radiant smile.  By the time she was in her mid-twenties, however, she left her humble home  and headed to te Big Apple of New York City.  It didn’t take long before she found work, and soon joined Earl Carroll’s Vanities on Broadway in 1928, however, she left the revue after complaints from her mother that her costume was too revealing.  MacCloy recalled later that the outfit she wore was  “basically strings of cotton candy and Mother thought one of the rich guys in the audience would rape me or something. Although that kind of thing did happen, I always managed to stay out of harm’s way.”

McCloy’s masculine baritone voice led her next to work as a male  impersonator, mimicing the style of Broadway star Harry Richman with the song “I’m on the Crest of a Wave” while playing in the George White’s long running Broadway Revue, “Scandals”, a production that launched the careers of many notables of the era.  It was written in her obit that  she continued working in Vaudeville and had the chance to work with the famed director Vincent Minnelli, (husband of Judy Garland and father of Liza Minelli), whom MacCloy recalled as a sadistic “nut” and a perfectionist with a “sexual craving for his own kind”.

Here is video clip of MacCloy singing with Big Crosby and BeBe Daniels in Very Wild Party from 1931

Her film career began in 1931 when MacCloy made her first feature film  “Reaching for the Moon“, with Douglas Fairbanks Senior, Bebe Daniels and a very young Bing Crosby. She had arrived in Hollywood in the fall of 1930.  On September 18, 1930, The Toledo News Bee carried a story and picture of the young and promising hometown girl as she traveled by train from New York to her new home in Hollywood.  She made a quick stop in Toledo that week to visit with family after siging a $12,000 contract with Paramount to begin her career in the movies. The New Bee says that MacCloy was the first Toledo woman to ever do a talking motion picture.

After her silver screen debut in “Reaching for the Moon”, she would go on to some success and notice in Ring Lardner and George Kaufman’s “June Moon” with Frances Dee and Jack Oakie. This movie could have been her big break, but the picture did not live up to its billing and MacCloy’s career never seemed to get the traction it needed to develop a full potential.  In fact, most of her films are rarely available anymore for viewing with the exception of the Marx classic “Go West”.   Also on her resume is  “The Big Gamble” which starred Bill Boyd and ZaSu Pitts, then and a series of comedies for RKO- and a series of radio shorts. MacCloy did have her moments in the big spotlight. In 1932 she sang Little Old New York in Lorenz Ziegfeld’s last Broadway production, Hot-Cha!, and also sang with several touring bands of the 1930’s.

During her career in Hollywood and on Broadway, the stunning MacCloy was a  favorite of the gossip columnists and the show biz tabloids. She was so good looking, there were always plenty of stories about her army of admirers. She said in later interviews that many men at that time proposed marriage with the lure of money and diamonds. One of those men was Jimmy Whiting, a multi-milionaire playboy type in Hollywood who tried putting a ring on MacCloy’s finger.  There was little doubt that he had plenty of money to employ in his campaign for marriage and on one occasion – he even arranged  a flight in a plane filled with rose petals.  But it was not to be.  For Whiting’s chief rival for MacCloy’s heart turned out to be a Toledo boy by the name of Charles Schuyler Schenck  who had also moved out to Hollywood’s budding film colony in the late 1920’s where he was doing some writing and playing music.  Schenk was the grandson of a former bank president in Toledo. While he was not quite as rich as Jimmy Whiting, he was was very handsome and it was Schenck who eventually won over MacCloy’s affections with his easy going style and Midwestern personality.  He and MacCloy drove to Yuma Arizona where they eloped in November of 1931.  The Toledo News Bee headlined the story “June MacCloy Chooses Love Over Riches”,  framing it as a cupid wins the day type story line, but this too proved to be just another Hollywood script headed for the scrapheap of memory.  The marriage to Schenck lasted only a few years. And by 1933, MacCloy was still a tender  24 years of age and had already been married and divorced 3 times.  It was the stuff of which gossip columns are made. The first of her union was to an Atlantic City man by the name Robert Forrester in 1928, which according to the Toledo News Bee had been annulled on application by MacCloy’s mother within a year.  Then the actress then married a Cincinnati film salesman, Wilbur Guthlein whom she divorced in 1931 to marry Schenck.  The man who did eventually win her heart for the long term was Neal Wendell Butler, a California architect who shared her love of jazz music and with whom she had two children. After her marriage in 1941, she retired from show business and made her home in Southern California with her husband who died in 1985, and where Toledo first female motion picture star died at the age of 95 on May 5th,  2005.

Here is a video of MacCloy from a movie in 1932 where she is singing in a night club…long intro..she begins singing about :55 into the clip.

If anyone who reads this has any information about MacCloy’s family from Toledo, I’m eager to get in touch with them to see what else they might be able to share with us about her life in later years after she left show biz.  It is also this writer’s opinion that perhaps there should be some public acknowledgement of MacCloy’s life and history in her home town of Toledo.  Seems curious that MacCloy fell into such local obscurity once her bright and shiny star fell from the Hollywood heavens.