Maumee Bay State Park is one of Ohio’s most popular tourist spots drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. But long before this Lake Erie shoreline attraction became a summertime mecca for swimmers, campers and golfers, it was reported to be the site of a stunning archaeological discovery. In 1895, on October 24th, it was widely reported in many newspapers throughout the country that a prehistoric Indian mound was found on the site which was known as the Niles Farm at the time, owned by well known writer and lawyer, Henry Thayer Niles.
Henry Thayer Niles owned Niles Beach along Lake Erie
Inside the mound, about 12 feet below the surface, 20 skeletons were found in a “sitting posture” and near each skeleton was a curious piece of pottery, “different from other mounds in other localities”. The skeletons, however were said to have crumbled upon exposure to air and “fell to dust”. However it was reported that two skulls were recovered and stayed intact. They measured about the same size as a normal human skull, but had much larger, heavier and stronger jawbones”. It was also reported that the niece of Henry Thayer, Niles who was a student of ancient cultures was there for the excavation, along with her uncle Henry. The newspaper wire accounts say each skeleton’s face was turned toward the east. And estimated that each bowl of pottery would hold about a gallon of fluid and that the edges of the bowls were “fluted” or “crimped” unlike most pottery of this type. The pottery also had pictographs or hieroglyphic type images on its sides. The age of the remains and mound were unknown, but Henry Nile’s niece estimated that they could have been several thousand years old. As to what other excavations may have followed on the Niles property, if any, is an unknown, as well as the eventual whereabouts of the pottery, the skulls and other artifacts that were unearthed that day. Such discoveries of earlier civilization in the Black Swamp during the 1800’s were not uncommon. Less than a year later in 1896, a similar revelation was made when several “ancient Indian” skeletons were recovered from an earthen mound in what used to be the Ironville neighborhood of East Toledo, roughly located in the area of Millard and Front Streets. That particular area was said by early settlers to be inhabited by several Indian settlements along the riverfront at Maumee Bay. However, what relationship those “ancient” burial sites might have had to the latter day Native Americans living in the area in the 1800’s is unknown.
It’s believed that in Lucas County alone there were as many as a dozen “ancient” sites. Perhaps more. Sadly though, most of them are invisible to us today. Assigned to obscure newspaper articles, diaries of pioneers or the conjecture of researchers. Most of the locations in the Toledo area that were discovered were never excavated with any scientific method, so as a result, we know relatively little about them or where they were. The only place that is officially marked, noting the existence of these ancient people, is found on Miami Street in East Toledo where the city’s earliest settlers found a large earthworks of an aboriginal fort situated atop the banks overlooking the narrow bend in the Maumee river. The fort was likely placed there strategically so that the ancient inhabitants could detect any movement from any potential adversaries on the river in both directions. Those earthworks and artifacts, however, were likely obliterated by the ambitions of a hungry plow. As the new residents of the 1830’s and 40’s were eager to work the soil and get crops in the ground, they were likely unconcerned with such historical curiosities in the course of their labor.
An article from the Toledo Blade in the 1930’s, featured an interview with the Herbert Whitmore, who was a descendant of one of the original pioneer families who settled along that area of the Maumee River. It was noted in the story that the family still had several artifacts taken from the fort site as the early settlers tilled the land for farming. Pots, arrowheads and even a French Axe was found as it was believed that the early French explorers in the 1700’s may have made camp at the site, long before the first pioneers from the East came to make it their home. At this time, a stone marker, is the only thing that denotes the prehistoric fort’s existence. It was placed there in the early 1940’s by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Today, it remains as a mere roadside curiosity dwarfed by the grain elevators that tower above it and discolored by the exhaust of the cars and trucks that speed past it. For what it’s worth: A street adjacent to the marker was even named Fort Street at one time, but even that has been changed. it is now Hathaway Street. So time moves on. As time moved on into the 1970’s, the desire by the state of Ohio to build a new state park on the area known as the Niles Farm in Eastern Lucas County was turning from talk to action.
Niles Beach(above) circa 1950 was a popular place for people to gather along the lake.
Long after the Niles family owned the land and operated a farm there, much of the lakeshore property had become a “resort” areas with summer cottages and a popular place for Toledo families from the 1920’s to the 1960’s to use the small stretch of beach as a summer playground on the lake. A massive storm and flood destroyed many of the little cottages in the fall of 1972.
By 1975, the land of the old Niles Farm was sold to the state and was even called a state park in advent of the project. One of the studies undertaken to determine what impact such an endeavor would have on this fragile wetlands environment along the lake was an archaeological evaluation. It involved some limited excavations in the sand bermed area known as Niles Beach. Roughly, just east of where the current state park lodge is located. The report from 1981 on the historical importance of the area was conducted by a team of well known and respected archaeologists. It included Dr. Michael Pratt, a familiar name in Northwest Ohio for other historic investigations he has conducted throughout the area. This particular survey of the old Niles Farm and the heavily wooded beach area did turn up a variety of artifacts of ancient peoples. Almost 90 in all. Some ceramic, such as ceramic pottery or sherds, and some made of stone, such as grinding tools, points and flakes from chert or flint. It was also noted that hundreds of artifacts had already been taken and removed from the site by a man named Eugene Paulsen of nearby Genoa. He told the investigators that he probably removed over 200 pieces of pottery and other lithic or stone items that he found embedded in the clay or washed ashore near the beach. What happened to those artifacts that were accumulated by Mr. Paulsen are unknown.
The final report said all of the artifacts found at the site in the 1981 search were probably from 1300 to 1500 A.D and were from the late Woodland people. Of the other artifacts found by other collectors – those artifacts represented every culture from the Paleo Indian through the modern day “Indians” of the 1800’s.. Missing from their report was the story of the 1895 burial mound that was unearthed with the 20 skeletons inside. That historical event was never mentioned, by ignorance of it, or design. Not sure. It did say that earlier artifact discovery sites were now obscured by the rising lake levels which had essentially puts hundreds of feet of historic shoreline underwater. The researchers concluded that the Niles Farm and Beach site had such little historical significance that it would not need to be put on the National Historic Register and should not impact the building of a park. Within a few years, the bulldozers and earth moving equipment began carving up the old Niles Farm into a plat of roadways, parking lots, campsites, a lodge and cabins and a golf course. And Maumee State Park is now a reality. One can only wonder what or whom may be buried beneath.
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 first week of May in 1902 brought a breath of springtime to Toledo. After another long and cold winter, the sun’s warmth cast its spell over the city, in a perennial promise of life renewed. The trees and flowering shrubs were clothed in a bouquet of color, the Maumee River was freckled with a variety of boats and ships, while along the riverbanks, hopeful anglers stood vigil waiting not just for a the pull of a fish or the meal it provides, but for the sheer joy of catching one.
Toledo Maumee Riverfront circa 1900
At Armory Park in downtown Toledo, the seasonal rites of baseball were well underway and the Toledo fans had reason to smile. Toledo had beaten Kansas City 7-5. In East Toledo, at Navarre Park, the trails and walkways on the gentle green slopes were filled with the sounds and scents of the season. The heady fragrance of the lilacs hung like a mist, inviting all to breathe deeper from the well of spring. The sweetness matched only by the chatter of children.
But as always with springtime, the weather can be unruly and restless. So too the ephemeral mood of gaiety and gladness. Sometimes a false peace, easily shattered by a sudden spasm of nature that breaks apart a city’s habitat of homes, or shattered by a foolish blunder of man that triggers a tragedy so great, it can break a city’s heart.
And so it was on the night of May 7th, 1902.
A group of Sunday School students, most of them teenagers, from First Baptist Church on Cherry Street in Toledo, climbed aboard a steam powered naphtha launch called the “Frolic on the Maumee River. It was to be a day of pleasure and play. A perfect day for a picnic on one of the nearby islands just beyond the bay in Lake Erie. It was to be a late afternoon-into-evening cruise with the bonus of a wonderful crimson sunset over the water. There were 11 people on board the Frolic, including the Captain and owner of the launch Joseph Hepburn. A man experienced at the helm of the craft who often took people on these excursions to Maumee Bay and the lake. His young passengers numbered ten. Seven young women and girls, all in their teens, several still in high school. And three young men, of similar ages. Two of the girls, Grace and Edna Lowe were sisters. And a brother and sister, Art and Clara Marx, was family with whom Captain Hepburn lived on Locust Street.
Eulalie Ricard
One couple, William Pfanner and Eulalie Ricard of Toledo, were engaged to be wed. They sat close to each other, staring into each other eyes as young lovers do. Clasped in each other’s embrace as day ebbed to night and a darkness set in over the waters. The young passengers, by all accounts, had enjoyed their excursion and by 10:00 o’clock that Wednesday evening, Captain Joseph Hepburn was on a heading back to Toledo, steering the Frolic inbound near the mouth of the Maumee River.
Further upstream, a well known tugboat, the Arthur Woods, of the Great Lakes Towing Company fleet, was making its way outbound, or downstream. It was not a huge tug, 55 feet in length and 35 feet at the beam. But it had been working the area of the Toledo docks for about three years pulling and guiding the larger vessels in and out of the docks and slips on the busy shipping channel. At the helm of the Woods was Captain Robert Fitts. Seasoned and well respected. His crew of three, the same. They were headed that spring evening for the slip at Ironville on the east side of the river where they were to dock and drop off a passenger. A woman who had asked Captain Fitts for a ride up to Ironville. It was not a customary practice to carry passengers for transport,aboard the tug, but for some reason, Fitts agreed and she climbed aboard. Little did he know that her presence on the Woods would become an embarrassing scandal for himself and the crew. .
As the Woods progressed downriver and drew closer to the Ironville area near the mouth of the river, Captain Fitts ordered the helmsman to make a starboard turn to the right towards the slip and docks at Ironville. As the tug cut across the channel, Fitts says he saw nothing, nor did he have any indication that any thing or any boat might be in his heading.
The position of the boats as described by Captain Joe Hepburn of the Frolic Launch
As the Frolic entered the harbor, the girls on the boat were still in a jovial mood from their long day on the water. They broke into song. A marching song, but before their voices could reach the next verse of the song, their voices cracked with horror. Bearing down on them was the bow of the tugboat, and not more than a second or two later, the front end of the Arthur Woods hammered into the side of the Frolic like a giant iron fist. Amidships it was hit, and turned the smaller boat up on its side, as if lifted by a hand, sending everyone on the Frolic into the cold inky water of the Maumee. As written the Toledo Bee on May the 8th, “The black Maumee opened its arms wide and took them deep down”.
The shattered Frolic rolled quickly into the water and within a minute it had vanished beneath the surface, “nothing remained on the ruffled surface of the river except the swaying tug that caused the devastation”. In the first moments of agony, the only things that surfaced were splinters from the Frolic and a few items from , but then, Captain Joe Hepburn, an experienced swimmer, made it to the surface, and Grace Lowe, a passenger also broke the water’s face and she grasped onto Captain Hepburn’s leg in her desperate bid at life itself. Hepburn grabbed Grace Lowe and pulled her close to him. Also a swimmer, 22-year old Art Marx, struggled to rise to the top and counted himself among those who would live, as a would his sister Clara Marx, who somehow found a floating seat cushion on the dark water and clung to it until she, like the other three, were plucked from the water’s grip by the crew of the tugboat. There was no sign of the other seven passengers. Five girls and two boys.. Later reports indicated that most of the girls did not know how to swim and there were no life preservers. It was estimated by some that the water in the river was about 20-25 feet deep at that location.
Arthur Woods tugboat in center with other tugs in Toledo
Example of a typical naphtha launch of that era
Captain Charles Fitts told news reporters that as the tug was cutting across the channel the first alert he got was the sound of a scream. At that point he ordered the tug into reverse and then heard a crash and more screams from woman and groans from men. Fitts says he’ll never forget those “bloodcurdling screams”.
No Running Lights on the Launch
He contended that the Frolic launch had no running lamps. No lights at all on a night when any hints of sunlight had long faded away and the sky and water were as dark as black glass. So dark that night, all the light was swallowed up and you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face. After the collision, they tried to shine lamps on the area where the launch went down, but said the lights on the tug were of little value.
Did the launch have a lamp or lantern? The Frolic Captain Joe Hepburn clung to his statement that he did have a light in the aft of the boat. Fitts, the tug Captain, held fast to his claim that there were no lights on any kind on the Frolic.
The search for those answers would have to come later.
Of immediate priority was the search for those who were lost. Survivors or bodies? By midnight, the hope for survival had ebbed to sorrow. The search was not renewed until daybreak the following morning. The search for seven bodies. As news began to circulate through Toledo of the events of the previous night, hundreds of curious onlookers assembled. They knit themselves together along the Ironville docks to bear witness and see for themselves the grim task of reclaiming the victims from their watery crypt. Some of the spectators were from nearby Shantytown along the river bank who gathered as soon as the morbid drama of recovery was underway. Nearby, clumps distraught family members stood and stared out across the water. Holding each other in the chilly morning sun, they studied the movements of the rowboats on the river for any sign that somebody they loved had been found at the bottom.
The reporters from Toledo’s newspapers also joined the curious and family members on the riverbank. Their search was for stories and they found them. They would write that the pastor of the First Baptist Church W.E. Loucks was first informed of the tragedy at six o’clock the next morning by a fellow pastor from another congregation. The Reverend Loucks spent the morning visiting the bereaved family members. He said “it came as a shock to me” and says he has known the families for five years and will do all for them that he can. The scribes from the Toledo Bee made it their mission to find out as much as they could about each victim, so that could attach more than just a name and age to the unfortunate.
A picture of the Lowe sisters was featured the first day in the Toledo Bee, as the two siblings would no longer have each other to confide in or share their future lives. Grace Lowe, by the grace of good fortune was able to survive the ordeal, but not without severe injury to her lungs and her heart. She was said to be hysterical with grief the following morning in knowing that her beloved sister, Edna Lowe, 19, was never to surface alive after she fell into the water’s unmerciful grip.
News Bee Photo of the Grace and Edna Lowe
Irwin Swain was just 17, a freshman in high school. Well liked and admired by many. His desire was to be an artist as he loved to sketch. He left many of his drawings lying about the house and his forlorn mother will have them to remember him by.
Bessie Bystrom was 18, an active Sunday school member and a clerk at a local grocery store. Her father an engineer at the Nasby Building.
Beth Ann Seesee, only 17, was described as a tall slim girl with beautiful brown hair and black eyes. She was loved by all who knew her.
Grace Haskin, 17, also a student at the high school was well liked and an active participant in her church. Ironically, her father had drowned in a launch accident on the river, just two years prior.
And then there was the poignantly sorrowful story of William Pfanner, 20 and Eulalie Ricard, 19. They were engaged to be married. He was working as a teller for Ohio Savings while his fiance Miss Ricard had graduated high school and Ursuline Convent and was active in Sunday school. Witnesses said they ran to each other as they saw the approaching tug and went to their death wrapped in each others arms. Miss Ricard was the cousin of victim Bessie Bystrom.
In the course of the next few days, there was no shortage of stories and remembrances about this river tragedy to feed the appetites of inquiring minds. There were of course the many questions that still lingered about what happened that night. How could the tug not have seen launch? Both captains, Fitts and Hepburn clashed publicly about whether the launch was displaying a running light. Tug captain, Charles Fitts was adamant that the launch had no such lamp or light. Captain Joe Hepburn was equally as adamant that they did. And he also accused the tug captain of taking a hard starboard turn that put the heavy tug on a collision course with their much lighter and vulnerable launch. An inquest into the vexing questions about the reasons for the tragedy would provoke even more questions. The identity of the woman said to be on board the tug was not known. The tug captain, Charles Fitts at first denied there was a woman on board. But other witnesses claimed to have seen her and she was reported to be drunk and amorous with the tug’s fireman. And during inquest testimony it was revealed by the tug’s fireman that he tried to make love to the mystery woman that night, but she rebuffed his advances. These sordid details may have had little to do with the cause of the accident, but in the black of white of newsprint, they helped sell newspapers. Not everyone was impressed with the sensational reporting in Toledo’s daily papers. A federal officer brought in to survey the damage and investigate the accident labeled the reporters as “newspaper leeches” and advised the people involved not to talk with them.
But that didn’t deter the reporters’ efforts to search for new revelations. Each new day seemed to bring new narrative of the human pathos that had played out on the river’s stage. Clara Marks, one of the four who managed to endure the torture of near drowning, did not survive easily. Her personal account in the Toledo Bee two days later was vivid.
“When the tug struck the boat, the side away from me went up in the air, and then I jumped off. I went down, down , down. I thought I would never stop going down. It was so black and cold. Then all of a sudden I seemed to stop. My lungs were bursting. I waved my arms, but they moved so slowly, as if a great weight was tied to them.”
The reporter who took her narration noted that Clara talked in a monotone and her skin was still white, and that water from the river was still in her lungs.
” I never swam before, but I kicked my legs and waved arms.” “I went to the surface, my throat and lung filled with cold water.” Within seconds she went down again. “I went down three times,” she said quietly. “I know that when I went down for the third time, that it was all over. And that I would not have to struggle any longer. It was a blessed relief.”
On her third time resurfacing she found a seat cushion, filled with cork, floating in the water and clutched it. It kept her afloat until she was finally rescued by her cousin Art Marks who swam to her in the darkness and was able to guide her through the water to be pulled aboard the Arthur Woods tugboat. Once aboard the tug Marks helped turn the victims, face down, to force them to expel the water in their lungs. A hero for the moment. The The Toledo Bee,said surely he should be ascribed that status.
And as every tale needs a hero, such heart rending horrors are sure to bring those forward who say they were “almost” victims. Such was the case of Pearl Miller, an 18 year old from the First Baptist church whose father strongly suggested he not go on the the Frolic excursion because it might be dangerous and he could die in there was an accident. Was it a premonition? Whatever the genesis of his father’s fear, young Pearl did not climb aboard the Frolic that day. He says that if he had, he probably would have drowned, for he can not swim.
Ironically, as if one tragedy to unfold in the headlines that week of 1902 was not enough to absorb, the day after Toledo’s terrible river tragedy, came word of catastrophic volcanic eruptions in the West Indies on the islands of Martinique and St. Vincent. Not one but two volcanoes erupted within hours of each other. Both were deadly, but the eruption of Mt. Pelee at Martinique was mind numbing with over 25,000 dead at St Pierre, essentially the entire city caught in the mountain of molten lava that mushroomed down the slope burying everything in the path. The earth’s convulsions spared few from he wrath of fire and rock. The stories did not need any florid embellishments, for the reality was sensational and horrid as the mind’s eye could envision. Toledo’s river horror would share ink and front page headline space with this seismic event of human calamity for the next week. The astonishing events in the Caribbean did little to impede or diminish the coverage of the the Frolic accident on the Maumee River and the full spectrum of the community response to it.
The coroner’s inquest, the mystery of the unidentified woman reported to be aboard the tugboat, and descriptions of how the victim’s families were coping all kept Toledo readers flipping the pages and drying their eyes. The story of the funerals was especially mournful. On Saturday May 10th, inside the sanctuary of the First Baptist lay seven caskets , side-by-side. The first time such a scene of this type and size had ever been witnessed in the city. The church itself was awash in clouds of floral beauty and fragrance as greenhouses in the city emptied their storage rooms of flowers and banked them in layers around the caskets. Hundreds of friends and family crowded the pews and stood near the coffins, as family members were given a chance for last last look and a chance to say goodbye. There were also hundreds of others who were strangers, affected curious who came to pay their respects and to be a part of this most solemn event. Extra rooms and the church vestibule were opened up to help accommodate the sea of people, many of whom wept openly, as others talked quietly about the investigation and who was to blame. The voices of a special quartet floated over the pews with song and hymns, keeping the mood somber. Outside, the skies had turned gray and cloudy. Cool and gloomy, fitting the mood of the afternoon.
Each coffin had its own set of pallbearers. Most were family or school friends. A poignant moment was observed as it was noted that all six of Beth Ann Seesee’s pallbearers were girls. Classmates. After the services, the caskets were taken that Saturday to Woodlawn and Forest cemeteries. Will Pfanner’s body was the only one to be interred at Woodlawn. The other six were taken by carriage to the Forest Cemetery.
The Burials at Forest Cemetery Turned Into a Mob Scene
It was at Forest where the mood of the mourners began to shift. Hundreds of other people joined those arriving caravan and according to news accounts, the scene devolved into one of chaos and disrespect. As news accounts described it,“Not less than 2,000 people gathered at Forest Cemetery to witness the internment of six of the young people who drowned Wednesday night…” The Sunday morning Toledo Bee called most of them “sensation seekers filled with morbid curiosity.”who laughed and joked as the six hearses slowly rolled into the cemetery. They were so unruly, they pushed and shoved and nearly caused some mourners standing on the edge of the graves to be “pushed into the cavity”. As the narrative of the burials continued, it noted the gray skies that brooded overhead and a sharp chill in the air as rude behavior of the curious continued. Miscreants who trampled fresh graves and tombstones as they rushed from one grave to another of the Frolic victims, stealing flowers and relics. A spectacle that disgraced the saddest funeral the city has ever known.
The next day, a similar scene played out once again at Forest as more of the irreverent made a pilgrimage into the graveyard. A Bee headline opined with chiding indignation, that all that was needed to make it a circus were “peanuts and popcorn”.
Mystery Woman Aboard the Tug Identified
With the victims at rest for eternity, the questions and controversy of the wreck were not close to being put to rest. The inquest was still underway and with each new day, new revelations broke the surface. One of the revelations came that Monday following the accident as the mystery woman was finally identified, In fact she freely admitted to it. Nellie Armstrong who lived at the Suburban Hotel on Water St. said she was the woman who got aboard the tugboat that night and was aboard when the accident happened. She was also identified by a man who says he was drinking with her in an Ironville saloon after the accident happened and she got off the tug. Nellie proved to be at ease on the witness stand and was described as glib and talkative. She said she had hitched a ride with the tug boat from the Jefferson Street docks so she could apply for a job as cook with one of the boats docked at Ironville. She asked tug captain Charles Fitts for a ride and he said, “Sure, hop on board.” One of the girls who survived the ordeal said after getting on board the tugboat, she saw Nellie Armstrong and asked her to help her out of her wet clothes, but the woman swore at her and refused to help.
The tug’s crew had lots of questions to answer about the events that happened just after the collision. One allegation made at the inquest was the Captain Hepburn of the Frolic, an experienced and excellent swimmer, wanted to jump back into the Maumee River waters to see if he could rescue any other passengers. But, he says the crew of the tug would not allow him to do it. Why they didn’t let him was a point of contention with tug captain Fitts stating that Hepburn said was going to jump into the water again with the intention to commit suicide. The tug fireman, William Smith agreed with the captain, but the tugs engineer, Charles Williams said he only heard Hepburn say he wanted to get back in the water to “save the girls”.
Captains of Both Vessels Held to Account
Captain of Frolic Launch: Joe Hepburn
Why more of an effort was not made by Charles Fitts, the Captain of the Arthur Woods, to rescue the victims of the Frolic, or at least make an effort to that end, is not clear. For many it was a haunting question mark for Fitts had a reputation for heroics in water rescues. Charles A. Fitts, was one of the most reliable pilots of the Maumee. Born in Toledo in 1872, he was the son of Captain Albert S. Fitts and had been around the lakes all of his life. As a younger man, he was a man of magnificent physique and strength. Athletic and aa little above the average height, he was regarded as a pleasant speaker and companion. His muscles according the friends and shipmates were like iron, and he was a strong swimmer. He aspired to be a pilot of Great Lakes steamers, like his father, and after leaving high school, he did so. Either working as a wheelsman or pilot on a variety of steamers including the Pastime which his father had sailed out of Toledo for a number of years. While on the hurricane deck of the Pastime,one day on the Maumee, he saw a boy fall off the dock. Fitts jumped overboard and swam to the boy who was near his last breath, and pulled him ashore, where he was resuscitated. His next rescue was at the foot of Jefferson street in Toledo. Three young men were on a small yacht when one them was swept off when he was hit by the main sail boom. He struggled helplessly in the water until Fitts swam out and succeeded in landing him on the deck of the Pastime where the young man recovered. Just why Fitts himself did not leap at the opportunity to help these struggling souls on that night in May of 1902 is silent to history. A question that would later become a part of the official ruling from investigators.
The inquest did not end quickly, the coroner conducting the proceeding was deliberate and methodical about gathering the evidence to determine where the blame might lie. A question that once determined could result in a wave of litigation against either the tug or the launch. A week after the accident, the coroner was taken to the scene of the collision on the river at Ironville. He wanted to see and judge for himself the supposed location of the vessels and who should have yielded to whom. Measurements and river depths were recorded and there was disagreement between the two captains as to where exactly each vessel was at the moment of impact. The coroner eventually said he has enough information and would make a ruling in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, the news and immediate excitement about the tragedy began to wane. The story was dropped from the front page and the city residents turned their attention to other and newer stories of interest.
A labor strike at Rossford’s Ford glass plant and at least five other factories idles thousands, the death of “Mary Ann the Gun” a once notorious pickpocket in Toledo, the Toledo arrest on “general principles” of a white man and black woman for their relationship, and the efforts by developers to build a new housing project near the zoo called Harvard Terrace.
This tragedy did keep some people focused on boat and water safety. There was an short story on how the river tragedy triggered a sudden demand for lights for boats and some shopkeepers said they were already sold out of the lamps. There was also a public demonstration at Walbridge Park of a new type of life preserver that promised better personal safety. It used inflated inner tube devices to keep people afloat in the water should they fall out of a boat. But sadly in the weeks that followed the accident there would be several more drownings on the river. Either from fishing boats that capsized in the currents, or children lured by the call of the cool water. Another summer when the river’s witch becomes a cruel temptress.
But the river is never blamed for its cruelty. The boat captain involved were left to fret as to which one of them might shoulder that burden of blame. The anxiety and the stress of the accident and the pending ruling began to take its toll on launch Captain Joe Hepburn, within two weeks after the disaster he resigned as head of the Toledo Yachting Association’s regatta committee, saying that he was no longer physical able to withstand the duties of the job. He is in such a state that he is in “no condition to participate in anything resembling festivities”
On May 27th, Coroner Storz finally ruled that neither skipper was to blame for the tragedy that took seven lives. Storz essentially sidestepped a final judgment as who was at fault, and relinquished that obligation to the Federal government, letting “Uncle Sam fix the blame”. In his Storz’s ruling he said he did not find either captain “to be liable for criminal negligence.” He also ruled that he couldn’t determine if the presence of woman passenger on board the tug was a contributing factor. He did write that he was surprised that more of the victims could not have been rescued, although he explained that might have been attributable to the “excited state of the tug crew” at the time.
In the end he implored other watercraft operators to be more careful, to be ready for emergencies and said he would leave it to the jurisdiction of the United States government to make a ruling.
Within a day, that ruling from the Customs office came and contradicted the coroner’s results. Colonel Bonner of U.S. Customs found both captains guilty and each should bear some blame for the deadly tragedy. The tug captain Charles Fitts was fined $500 for violating the rules by allowing a woman passenger on board the tug that night, and for operating with one crew member short, and without an adequate lookout for any impending hazard on the river. Colonel Bonner also ruled that Captain Joe Hepburn was not without fault, and was fined $200 for not having running lights on his naphtha launch, the Frolic, and that his craft also should had someone keeping watch for possible hazards in the darkness.
Epilogue
The rulings came the same week in 1902 as Toledoans were ready to observe Decoration Day, what we now call “Memorial Day”. Dutifully tens of thousands of people took carriages or walked or took a trolley to area cemeteries to pay their respects to those who died or served their country in the Civil War, and other wars in the nations history. Flags flapped in the breeze, bugles played, preachers prayed and everyone stopped if only for moment to absorb and reflect. School children, at the urging of teachers and veterans, gathered flowers to scatter over the graves of those who had fought their last battles. Forest Cemetery hosted the largest numbers of pilgrims who came to give their solemn thanks. Many of whom no doubt saw the fresh mounds of earth piled atop the new graves of six young people who perished when the Frolic launch flipped and discarded them to the bottom the river. Likely pausing to ponder the young lives who futures were robbed by the whim of circumstance. In time, however, the mounds of loose clay would subside and grass would grow over them and headstones would appear with etched names, so the living would not forget who they were. But, as always, memories do wither with the seasons. Perhaps not for the families and close friends, but those others who knew them only by their notoriety of death. Time and memory move on. There would be other tragedies, large and small, sensational and similar to ensnare the attention span of the public.
Maumee River A Lethal Seductress
Ironically, nine years later in 1911, on September 2nd, seven people, six of them Toledo city officials and employees, were also sent to the murky depths of the Maumee when their 35 foot fishing boat “The Nemo” was rammed by the bow of a freighter, the “Philip Minch”. This calamity too rendered weeks of journalistic and public fascination. But it too eventually faded to a footnote in Toledo’s past.
In, a similar tragedy would play out again when in 1930, eight prominent Toledo men mysteriously went to their deaths when they were flung from their high speed Dart boat into Lake Erie. The victims were on a night run from Toledo to Pelee Island in Canada for an Elks party. As the sped across the dark waters of the lake, something caused the sleek wooden speed boat to flip and pitch them into the black water of eternity. The story was charged with mystery and high intrigue for weeks and then the story’s sharp focus slowly faded into the mist.
Mystery of Why This Tragedy Still Unsolved
More than 100 summers have passed since the night in late spring of 1902 when what should have been a routine non newsworthy pleasure cruise turned into a horrible episode in the city’s history. However, much has changed since then. Steam launches are no longer seen on the river, replaced by gas powered pleasure craft. The community of Ironville is gone and so are the docks, at least as that generation knew them. First Baptist Church on Cherry Street later became a homeless mission and during urban renewal, torn down. And most of the city’s newspapers of that day, including the News Bee are gone too. The ink and its pages though, preserved in digital form, are able to reveal to readers volumes of history and this Toledo tragedy. The only tangible physical evidence enduring is found in the city’s cemeterys, Woodlawn and Forest. Here one can still find the graves of the seven victims and even the latter graves of some survivors. At Forest, the markers of those lost were joined by the tombs of the two boat captains , Joe Hepburn and Charles Fitts. Two men of water, joined for eternity in a sea of earth. Nearby one can find also the final homes of the victims’ family members, and friends who bore the sorrow and memories. Buried with them, no doubt, their burden of tears and torment.
Yes, much has changed. And much has not.
Now on a sunny spring day, as it was May 7th, 1902, the leaves in the green canopy at Forest still rustle overhead in the soft breezes that curl among the weathered headstones, whispering to all who hear them, the stories that time won’t forget.
One of the motivations I had for starting this blog ten years ago in 2010 was my passion for discovering people and events of the past that had been largely ignored, forgotten or assigned to the junk drawer of history.
Every now and then I spend some time sorting through that old junk drawer and without fail, I tend to find a few gems. Such was the case this week when I came upon the story of Maurice J. Francill. Born in Marion Ohio just before the start of the 20th century, Maurice, whose given name at birth, was Francis Marion Cowgill,(he changed his name later in life) would spend most of life exploring the mystery and magic of radio. In fact, he was known as the Radio Wizard, and by the early 1920’s he was stunning audiences around the country with his ability to use radio waves to control mechanical devices. From toys to cars to trains, Maurice Francill had figured out the technology of “remote control”. Recall that in the 1920’s, most people were still wrapping their head around the remarkable new concept of listening to people speak from far off cities on a crystal radio in their living rooms.
This was big magic to most people at the time. It was a technology in its infancy and radio stations were just at the early stages of development. Toledo would not have a radio station until 1925. But here was Maurice Francill, already showing people how radio waves could not only travel through the invisible “ether” of air, but how those waves could make things move.
Local Audiences Awed By Francill’s Shows
In the February 10th , 1923 Edition of the Coshocton Tribune, Francill was demonstrating a remote controlled automobile on the city streets of Coshocton as part of a radio exhibition that was touring the country.
The paper wrote: The machine he will demonstrate tonight is valued at ten thousand dollarsand required a year to build. The machine is equipped with a radio selector which makes itpossible to perform an operation request from any member of the audience, much in the same manner as if it had “mechanical brains”.
From that description it may be safe to conclude that Maurice Francill, who would later move his operations to Toledo, was the inventor, not just of remote control, but the first autonomous car. That was almost 100 years ago.
Francill would continue his demonstrations for curious eyes in a broad swath of cities and towns across the nation. In New Castle Pennsylvania in 1926 Radio Wizard Francill gave demonstrations at a car dealership of his invention showing the crowd how he could start the automobile, flash its lights, honk its horn or turn its wheel “without the touch of a human hand”. The newspaper writer reflected on what this “remote control” technology might mean for future. Francill even allowed people in the showroom to thoroughly inspect the car to make sure it wasn’t rigged with a hidden driver or wires. It wasn’t. The article also said Francill demonstrated how to fry an egg on a block of ice using this technology, but didn’t elaborate.
His amazing feats before thousands of people would be repeated maimes over from Newark Ohio to Reno Nevada with many stops in between. In Waterloo Iowa in 1927, thousands of onlookers jammed various points of the city to watch in awe as he drove a Hudson Essex down a city street, turned on a washing machine at a city laundry, and started up an ice factory with the press of a button on his 15 pound radio transmitter from a remote location. He was theRadio Wizard. His creativity for finding new applications was impressive. In 1929, In Newark,Ohio he was demonstrating at a local dairy, how his radio device could operate a mechanical milking machine for cows. He repeated the same stunt on stage at a theater in Lima in 1929, and the newspaper reported that the cow, “Duchess” was calmly brought onto the stage and Francill, was able to extract 40 pounds of milk which cascaded into the bucket like “Niagara Falls”. On that same trip to Lima he also showed how radio could be used to operate a street car, and he did it for all to see.
It is not apparent if Francill had succeeded in finding commercial uses for his new radio technology. However, because Francill was seen by many as an entertainer and not a scientist, his credentials and credibility may have been questioned as a serious inventor. Especially when considering that many of his shows also included spiritualism and Seance features. But it was hard to deny that he did have something tangible to provide audiences who marveled at his ability to drive a car, or a play a violin or milk a cow without the aid of a human hand.
It was the stuff of the future and in the 1920’s and 30’s, the science of radio was the new frontier of possibility and Francill brought some of that “wonder” to hometown America.
As far back at 1926 in an interview with a Reno Nevada reporter, Francill said he had built a death ray machine that could stop a beating heart and wanted to try it our on a convicted murderer who was condemned to die. He said he was asking some state governors to let him try it. He was convinced that the death ray technology would be the technology of future wars when armies would be able to use them to “annihilate people by the hundreds”. He also predicted it would become a popular crime fighting tool, for it not only could kill people, but kill the engines of speeding getaway vehicles and could start distant fires. His discovery of the“death ray”, he said, was found by accident while doing other experiments. He held its technology as a closely guarded secret lest it fall into the wrong hands of amateurs.
He also would later demonstrate the use of “light rays” which he touted as a new method to broadcast voice transmission on a,beam of light. He felt this was in many ways more effective and useful than radio waves. He was prescient on that thought, but light ray technology was not new. Hardly.
It had been invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880. In fact the use of light ray photo-phones did become an effective stealth communication during World War Two. Today’s fiber optic technology is built on the foundation of light ray technology.
Francill’s one questionable claim was his public insistence that he had a “death ray” device. In 1940 he demonstrated it to reporters and witnesses in Toledo. In February of that year he assembled a group of reporters and witnesses to his home in North Toledo. Nine men, according to the article in the Toledo Blade, watched as Francill used a “queer machine” with port holes and coils, to deliver a death ray of sorts to a rat that rose up on its “shaky haunches, ran in a few agonized circles and died.”
The reporter, Arthur Peterson, contended that the rat was a large brown alley rat and appeared to be in good health before it was taken out of a wire cage and put into a glass case. From 15 feet away Francill’s projector was trained on the rat inther glass case and caused its sudden death. How and why did it die? What exotic technology had this Toledo inventor uncovered? Francill told the reporter he didn’t know, but he theorized that the “ray” may have deteriorated the tissue of blood and flesh and nerves.
He also demonstrated another experiment with the strange projector by projecting a ray unto a pair of beakers in which were two unidentified chemicals. When hit by the “ray” the chemicals turned from a milky white color to blue color. Francill showed the witnesses assembled at his home other examples of his shadowy science including the projection of a ray from the secret box to a shaft of steel which became very hot. He also showed a “military” invention thathe says was a thermal compound that can be ignited by water and get so hot it can eat through the side of a battle ship.
Just how long Francill lived in Toledo I have not yet determined(still working on it). I do know that he was here in the 1930’s and through part of the 50’s before he returned to his hometown of Marion where he passed away in 1974 at the age of 77.
Was he a crackpot? A conman? Or was he the real deal? Maybe a little of all three. Not sure really, but what I can ascertain by what I’ve read in the limited research I’ve done, is that he made some of his money by selling sponsors to his shows. When he demonstrated his “remote control” automobiles, it was usually underwritten and marketed by a car dealership. Or a dairy if he was milking cows, or a street car company if he was “automating” the local street cars. His draft card and selective service application in 1943 shows he was living at 1702 N. 12th Street in Toledo, was employed by the Massachusetts Protective Association(insurance company) and was married to his wife Josephine.
I am very curious as to what Francill’s “death ray” was. If it was not a hoax, I suspect that perhaps he had stumbled into some rudimentary microwave wave technology. The use of very high frequency radio waves to heat objects, which had been discovered in the 1930’s and even featured at the 1939 World’s fair in Chicago.
Regardless, even if Maurice Francill was just a clever huckster who could harness electronics to make a quick buck, he gave Americans of all ages and walks of life a sense of wonder of the world around them, a sense of the future wonders that would eventually come to fruition. Heat the very least a futurist, and a teacher who helped spark the imagination of the country.
Photo of Great Stone Face taken at Dixon Inn in Toledo circa 1920
Okay, here’s a mystery that needs an answer. Or maybe a couple. It seems that back in the 1800’s when Toledo city workers were doing some excavating along Monroe Street in the downtown area, they came across an ancient stone carving. It was the carving of face and it appeared to those who saw it to be the face of an early Native American, or a person with “thick lips and round face”who was deemed to be one of the “ancient” pre-historic people, known as mound builders.
This little gem has come my way from a book given to me by a friend who found the 1922 book it in a garage sale near Dayton. The book is entitled “Memories” by Dr. Cyrus Noble of Toledo who practiced medicine in the early part of the 20th century in Toledo and Wood County.
Dr. Cyrus Noble
Dr. Noble was also a poet and observer of life in the area and his poems reflect on a number of local stories that piqued his curiosity and interest. In “Memories” he writes fondly of the famed “Indian Elm” in Maumee. A giant among trees where Indians reportedly perched to take aim at soldiers across the Maumee River at Ft. Meigs. Dr. Noble also waxes lyrically about a variety of topics, but the one that snared my curiosity was the story of the “Great Stone Face”. There wasn’t much of a narrative about it, but there was a photo of it, presumably where it was exhibited for years inside of the now-forgotten Dixon Inn in Toledo’s old Tenderloin District. The Dixon Inn had been a brothel at one time, amid the clutter of the “sin zone” but after the Tenderloin was closed down in 1918, the Dixon Inn stayed open as a hotel, inn and boarding house, and more importantly – a very strange museum. I have written about the Dixon Inn before in the Gazette, and its odd collection of bizarre artifacts, from shrunken heads to ancient battle weapons. But the “Great Stone Face” is the stand out among the collection, for if it is truly an artifact of ancient heritage, it conjures a list of questions, the first being how it came rest 20 feet below the surface of earth in the area of downtown Toledo? One might wonder what else is still down there to be discovered? If there are any folks who can offer some educated speculation as to the origin of this “face” or any other information about it, please share them with us. My search efforts to excavate more about information regarding the “face” have turned up nothing specific, but other stories regarding carvings found in other areas of the country.
In fact, the discovery of human effigy artifacts from the “mounds” in Ohio and other Midwest sites in Illinois and the Mississippi Valley are well established, but Toledo was not known for an abundance of such mound building activity, although, there were, as I have read, some small “mounds” discovered in the downtown area near the river upon arrival of the first pioneers to the area. So how did this carving get to Toledo. It was offered by some that it could have been transported here centuries ago from another area and left with those ancients living on the Maumee River.
When looking at the photo of this particular “stone face” at the Dixon Inn, it does not resemble the others I have seen, but looks more “finished” or finely sculpted. Thus, some shades of skepticism darken my door of belief. What do you think? Where would it have come from? How did it get to Toledo, and what ever happened to it? I have found from a newspaper reference that it was part of the Dixon collection that was auctioned at the Dixon Inn around 1925 after the owner died.
The Great Stone Face of Toledo seems to have disappeared in the past century, leaving me to wonder whether the carving was really the product of someone perpetrating a hoax and merely had been the handiwork of a con artist or someone with a sense of history and humor. That is certainly possible and let’s face it, the Dixon Inn was not exactly the Smithsonian. Despite the questions and the doubts, Dr. Noble seemed convinced of its historic gravity and message when he penned his poem in 1920, about Toledo’s Great Stone Face.
If the veil of mystery,
were rent so I could see,
I could talk to the Great Stone Face,
and it could talk to me.
To tell me of the ages past,
of all the great unknown–
and about the Master Hand
that made it in the stone,
And of the mighty ruler,
in whose image it was made,
How it t’was worshiped as a god,
through many a decade.
How before some temple door,
t’was strewn with flowers and kisses
It saw the strife of human life,
And heard its howls and Hisses;
Then watched earth drink up the blood,
of men of might and brains
It saw the traitors slay their kings
To grasp the ruler’s reins
For centuries this face held sway,
above some sacred mound,
until a conquering army came,
and dragged it to the ground.
Its friends, by night, had stole away
And brought it over land,
with stealth and pride,
they buried it beneath the Maumee’s sand.
Then all the history of its past
Was plunged into the dark,
No doubt t’was safely hidden there
when Noah built his ark.
A modern city rose Above its resting place;
Men who delved into the ground
Came to this wondrous face.
They brought it once more to light,
where the curious could gaze,
and ponder over its handiwork of men of other days.
Thousands of people slept on their lawns at night to keep cool
Okay. I know it’s been hot and sticky for a few days this week and so far this month we’ve seen our share of 90 or near 90 degrees days(seven, to be exact). And there is probably more on the way. Before we start to complain too loudly, we should know that “this heat ain’t nothin’”. Not compared to 1936, when 80 years ago this month, the Toledo area, and most of the Midwest was under siege by the sizzling and deadly sun. Temperatures soared for 8 days straight well past the 100 degree mark. Toledo recorded its all-time high of 104.7 degrees. At the old Muni airport in Lake Township, the recorded high one day was 107 degrees, while Bowling Green was burning at 110 degrees. And remember, there were few, if any air conditioners. Just electric fans. Stores couldn’t keep them in stock.
Office workers in St. Paul Minnesota enjoying the fan
DEATH TOLL CLIMBS
The resulting oven like temps were blamed for over 70 deaths in Toledo, including 17 patients at the Toledo State Hospital for the Insane. More victims, by the hundreds were rushed to hospitals with heat stroke and collapse. Local towns around Toledo also reported heavy casualty tolls from the broiling sun. Day after day, the toll climbed. The oppressive heat was not just dangerous for humans, but all life withered under its heavy hand. Animals and livestock by the hundreds succumbed from the assault of heat and dehydration. As a result, tallow and rendering companies found themselves working non-stop to clear the dead carcasses from the farms and fields.
STREETS AND ROADWAYS EXPLODED
The mercury rose to levels that the heat triggered numerous spontaneous combustion fires. Barns, grasses and hay blossomed with flame throughout the area. Most startling perhaps was the constant buckling many sidewalks, streets and roadways as the asphalt boiled and the pavement ruptured. Toledo’s downtown streets were not immune to the ravages, as street level temps were recorded in excess of 110 degrees for a week of afternoons. At the Jamra’s Tobacco Company in the 500 block of Monroe Street, the thermometer recorded 119 degrees on the afternoon of July 8th. Further out Monroe Street at the railroad viaduct near Auburn, the retaining walls buckled and heaved in the heat. Even the Toledo city bridges were affected as drawbridges were unable to close properly because of heat expansion in the closing latches. In Ottawa County, brick-paved streets were reported to be bursting in Oak Harbor on State Rt. 19 as the blistering temps caused the pavers to expand and explode. After 7 days of sweltering conditions, state highway officials said more than 550 roadways in Ohio had exploded.
LABOR AND NORMAL ACTIVITIES AFFECTED
Throughout the region many stores and numerous factories were forced to close with the mercury surpassing 100 degrees by mid afternoon. In several incidents, factory workers were reported to be overcome by heatstroke and rushed to hospitals for treatment. Construction workers were especially vulnerable and many had to put down their tools and get out of the blazing sun to seek shelter from the broiling conditions. It was reported that even the hens at local egg farms were so hot, they too stopped work and wouldn’t lay eggs.
WATERY ESCAPES PROVED DEADLY
Another consequence of the scramble to keep cool as thousands Toledo area resident turned to the relief of water. To escape the sweltering misery, they went swimming and many did not return. During this eight day period, dozens of people died from drowning as they crowded the rivers, beaches, lakes, ponds, pools and quarries. Newspapers everyday carried numerous articles about those folks, young and old swallowed forvever by the very thing they had hoped would bring them some temporary comfort.
Coney Island Beach 1936
Local health officials became very concerned at one point because thousands of people were so desperate they began venturing into the murky Maumee River. A river that even in 1936 was already considered a public health hazard for its stew of sewage and pollutants. Some health experts warned that long term exposure to the toxins and bacteria in the water could claim more lives than the drownings. The huge number of Toledoans that crowded the public pools was also a problem for it was feared that the filters couldn’t handle the pollution from the high number of bathers and that could also be a public health danger. Walbridge Park pool was recommended for closure, while city chemists worked to ascertain bacteria levels in the pools throughout the city.
WATER SUPPLY GREW SHORT
It wasn’t just the purity of the city’s water supply that came into question during this pressing heat wave of the 1930’s, but the supply and water pressure began dwindling. In downtown office buildings and hotels, many rooms on the upper floors of those buildings did not have water for days. Water restrictions were put in place and residents were warned not to use their lawn sprinklers or to use water needlessly. In the meantime, many residents had few options but just to do their best to move slowly and stay cool. Some began peeling off clothes, or sitting in front of fans, while others found that ice cream was an effective coolant. Ice cream parlors and beer joints in the city racked up record business. A few of the movie theaters in downtown Toledo, the Princess, the Valentine and the Rivoli all had air conditioning and were kept at a cool 70 degrees. Theater goers by the thousands flocked to what the NewsBee called the “Coolies” at these downtown venues.
TOLEDO JUST ONE SLICE OF THE SEARED LANDSCAPE
As the drought conditions began to take a firm grip on Toledo that summer of ’36, other areas of the Great Plains and the Upper Midwest were already reeling from the solar blight, dealing with crop failures and livestock starvation. From South Dakota to Texas, to the Eastern Seaboard, millions of acres of wheat and corn had been parched and lost, forest fires scorched the earth and hundreds of thousands of rural residents were left destitute and struggling. The Works Progress Administration, the WPA , reported at least 25,000 people were facing a lack of food and they were cutting red tape to get money to those affected.
Many farms suffered catastrophic damage
The newspaper stories of the heatwave also reminded us that heat can make strangers of us all. “Crazy from the Heat” was not just the title of a David Lee Roth Album. In nearby Sandusky, a man reportedly went berserk from the stress of the heat and went “out of his mind”. Police there say C.C. Lanley, 60 years old, was pushed beyond his limits of sanity. He shot his wife to death as she lie in bed, and then turned the gun on himself.
In Erie, Pennsylvania, a 40 year old man on July 18th 1936, a few days after he had suffered heatstroke conducted a prayer service at his church and then went home and hammered to death his wife and two sons. Sam Weed then ran screaming outside and threw himself in front of a moving semi.
In Prophetstown, Illinois, about 80 miles west of Chicago, a man tried to extort the entire village of about 1000 people. Merchants of the parched community say they were ready to pay a man about $1000 cash to keep him from bombing and setting fire to their community. “We intend to pay him” said the bespectacled mayor from his grocery store, “It’s mighty dry around here and we can’t take a chance on a fire.”
The national death toll from the fierce heatwave of 1936 was about 5,000 when all was said and done, with over a billion dollars in crop losses to farmers, and hundreds of thousands taken ill during this extrordinary summer of discontent. It is was and is still considered the worst heatwave on record in U.S. history. And surprisingly it followed one of the coldest winters on record. While Toledo saw the mercury eclipse the 104 degree mark, other cities and regions coped with even hotter conditions. Okalhoma City experienced temperatures in excess of 120 degrees, as did parts of the Dakotas. Indiana’s high temp was 116 degrees and the residents of the little burg of Mio, Michigan dealt with 112 degrees on July 13th. Seventeen states broke or equaled their all time highest heat record that July.
LIFE STILL SOMEWHAT NORMAL
But…perhaps more interesting in hindsight, as we look back at the newspaper reports of the day was how our grand parents tried to keep life in the normal zone, despite dealing with the outrageous assault and nature’s attempt to kill everything and everyone.
Many people, as it would appear, continued working, shopping, taking in events and picnics, or attending ball games. Generally going about their lives with a minimum of complaint, albiet with fewer layers of clothing, and a heavier layer of sweat. The Willow Beach Dance contest was won by a Mr. and Mrs. Howard Marvin of Defiance, hundreds of people turned out for the funeral and internment of former Toledo Congressman Warren Duffey and a crowd of city officials and businessmen turned out in 102 degree heat to inspect and tour the all-new modern New York Central “Mercury” locomotive on display at the Middlegrounds. The Lion Store had a sale on cotton frocks, a shopper’s luncheon at Petro’s in downtown Toledo was just 20 cents, and thousands of Toledoans were eagerly heading to the Stickney Avenue Showground where the Ringling Brothers Circus was featuring two shows a day. Life was hot. But life was still being lived.
Maybe it says something about our grandparents who had not yet been spoiled by the cool comfort of air conditioning and the desire to live life at a constant 72 degrees. They seemed to roll with the punches and the hard times. Yeah, it was painfully hot, but life was always hard. Don’t expect anything less.
Wonder how we, in this part of the country would deal with 110 degree temps today. Can’t help but think that life, as we know it, would stop. If our roads started blowing up, and the water supply dwindled to a trickle, and we suddenly lost our precious air conditioning? Would we have as much grit as Grandma and Grandpa who somehow seemed able and willing to forge a life and a future in the heat of hardship.
I ponder that as I sit in my comfortable air conditioned office on this 90 degree day that is too hot for me to mow the lawn.
( I first published this story a few days ago asking readers of the Toledo Gazette to help me find out whatever happened to Lillian Poupard ,one of Toledo’s last hardy fisherwomen living on tiny Indian or Odeon Island just off the northern most tip of Point Place. A 1934 News Bee article about Lillian prompted me to ask more questions about this interesting woman and her husband Bill Poupard who lived a very quiet and happy life on this small island eeking out a meager living from the fishing trade. I am pleased to report that Barb Burgess of Wooster, a local history buff and researcher was able to find the information I was looking for. Sadly though, that new information informs us that Lil and Bill Poupard’s life together after the News Bee story appeared was short-lived. Lillian died a few years later, on September 28th of 1937 of cancer, at the age of 42. As the article states, she was of German descent and had been born Lillian Reusher, to her parents Herman and Sophia (Reichter), both born in Germany. Lillian Poupard is buried at Forest Cemetery in Toledo. And, as I was to disover, Bill’s life also tragically ended a few years after his beloved Lil. She and Bill apparenty had no children. Thanks to Barb Burgess and others who worked to find the information help fill in the blanks on this story. We are still trying to disocver more the couple and more about Bill and Lillian’s early lives in the area.)
A story that caught my attention while I was researching my book, Day by Day in Toledo, was that of Lil Poupard, a woman that the Toledo News Bee dubbed the “Mistress of Odeon Island”. In an 80 year old article from August of 1934, the News Bee featured Lil and her husband Bill Poupard who were two hardy souls that lived on this little spit of an island just off Point Place and made their living catching and selling fish. They resided there on the tiny island, not just in the balmy and gentle days of summer, but throughout the year, even in the “bleak” days of winter, living in a small wooden structure, a shanty they called home. They were the sole inhabitants along with Bill Poupard’s brother Fred who is said to also have lived on island.
The story piqued my interest on a number of levels, first I was curious as to the whereabouts of Odeon Island. You won’t see it on a map today, but what you will find are Indian and Gard islands, just off the northern most tip of the Point Place peninsula at the mouth of the Ottawa River. I am told by area historian Buzz Achinger of the Lost Peninsula that Odeon Island was the first name for what is now Indian Island.
” It is a distinct island of its own. It is less popular than Gard and the other surrounding islands because it can be treacherous around its shores. There are shallows that can trap boaters in the summer and springs & soft spots that cause havoc for snowmobiles and ATVs when the area is ice-covered in Winter. It is a natural island, not man-made like a few other island nearby.” Buzz also tells me that not much is there these days and that he doubted if the old wooden structures of the Poupard’s remained.
I have placed an historic USGS map to show you the relative placement of the island just off the mouth of the Ottawa River.
The other question raised in this faded old story was about Lil Poupard herself. Described as being an attractive, good natured, blond-haired woman in her early 40’s, she was of German descent and had been living on the island for the past 20 years as a “fisherwoman” with her husband Bill, and was the last of the area women who made their living as “fishwives”. Virginia Nelson, the author of the News Bee story writes;
” She is the last of a hardy and picturesque line. Years ago when fishing was really good around the Point, there were a number of women who earned their living this way. But fishing has fallen off a great deal in the last two or three years. For one reason or another the women have given it up. But to Lil Poupard, life according to any other design would be unthinkable. She is known in the parlance of the fisherfolk as a fishwife but there is nothing of the screaming harridan about her that is usually associated with the word.”
Nelson goes on to tell us that Lil defies the stereotype, and while she does wear hip boots while working side by side with the “men”, when she is not working, she wears nice dresses and keeps her hair washed and styled as she and Bill live a quiet, simple and contented life on their private island. Even in the wintertime, Lil Poupard tells Nelson, “ People think the winters out here would be bad but we don’t mind them. We bring out plenty of coal and groceries and we have a radio. We along fine. There seems to be a lot of trouble in the world but it doesn’t seem to bother us out here.”
Nelson continues to paint that picture of the Poupard’s little paradise on Maumee Bay, by writing of how their humble home is set in a grove of tall trees and Bill often plays long lazy ballads on his mouth organ out in the yard with an assortment of cats and dogs and other animals running around. Says Lil of this spartan lifestyle,
” I wouldn’t trade this life for all the card parties and picture shows there are.”
But eventually something did change for the Poupard’s. Just when and how, I have been unable to discover, and perhaps you or someone you know can shed some needed light on this story’s dark evolution. What I have been able to determine from Blade and News Bee articles is that sometime between 1934, when the News Bee feature appeared and the Spring of 1939, Bill Poupard would find another woman to share his life with on the island, a much younger woman than Lil. And whatever plans they had for matrimony were cut short But by tragedy. According to a newspaper article, the body of 21-year-old Jean Brown was found in the waters of Maumee Bay near Odeon Island by two duck hunters. the article says she had been missing for several days when her body was found. The news story also states that the body of 46-year old William Poupard was found nearby by relatives of his who had been searching for him. Poupard was described as the caretaker of Odeon Island. The story says that the Poupard and Brown were on their way to mainland from Odeon Island when their duckboat overturned.
(See new information at beginning of the post)
I suppose, we could leave the story there. But my curiosity always trumps indifference. I really wanted to know what happened to Lillian Poupard, what was her maiden name, her real background and the remaining chapters of her life story? So far, my efforts have hit the proverbial brick wall. Lil’s story seems to have left no footprint, at least not a digital footprint, that can be followed. Searches of obituary indices and ancestory, newspaper databases have offered not a trace. So far. I did have a bit more success in finding some information about William Poupard, including his date of birth, June 11, 1895 and that he was born in Toledo and registered for the World War I draft in 1916. He was listed as a fisherman at that time. Beyond that, not much else except for some listings in the Toledo city directories along with other Poupards, also listed as fishermen living in the 3500 block of North Erie Street. It must be noted however that the Poupard name was and is not a rare name in both Lucas County and Monroe County over the years, and there were a number of Poupard men with the first name of William.
Not sure if it is relevant, but some research of census records does indicate that two brother, by the name of William and Fred Poupard, born around 1895 were residents of the Miami Children’s Home about 1903. And both boys listed their parents as having been born in France. Could this be the William and Fred Poupard who once lived on Odeon island, with Lil Poupard in 1934? Maybe so, maybe not.
If you know, or know someone who knows more about the “Mistress of Odeon Island”, and the Poupards, I’d like to share that story with the Toledo Gazette readers. For Lillian Poupard, according to the 1934 News Bee story appeared to be good person, a gentle soul, and someone whose life was probably much larger than an obscure article in a faded newspaper. Someone worth knowing.
One of the great joys I get from reading old newspapers, is absorbing the colorful writing of newsprint reporters from years past. It is a true lesson in how to spin a great yarn using the elements of fact, but set down in a narrative the keeps the readers’ attention. Perhaps not always with the most accuracy, and usually spun with some subjective bias, but it’s damn fine storytelling nonetheless. It was the essence of pulp fiction. Few papers in the country did it better that Toledo’s News Bee. If you read the News Bee, you were treated to a tabloid view of life on Toledo’s colorful streets that would compel most everybody to grab the daily paper and a cup of coffee and settle down for an hour’s worth of great reading. Still does.
I found an example of this prose, I thought it would be fun to share with you from a 1930 article taken from a Toledo News Bee that tells the story of a guy named “Big Wingle” and how he came to meet his demise in one of Toledo’s most dangerous crime neighborhoods of the era.
“Guns He Shunned, Finally End Knife King’s Career”
They never would have got “Big Wingle” that way if he had been facing them. Every Detective who responded to 518 State Street agreed on that point. But the fact remained, that “Big Wingle”, Leroy Wagner, Canton Street’s bad boy, lay dead there with five bullet wounds in his neck.
It seemed funny to those detectives to stand there and look down on “Wingle”. They had picked up, in their time, many of the big boy’s victims who had made the double mistake of speaking out of turn and then stepping in front of the one-armed boy’s razor.
“Wingle’s” shed-home near where his body lay didn’t offer much in the way of what happened. The improvised furniture lay scattered about. There must have been a fight. Neighbors heard the rumpus, but Wingle’s neighbors made it a practice of never interfering in his business.
The big boy’s roommate who was seen intoxicated on Canton Street just before the shooting is sought by police. He’s tough too.
Since 1917 police have arrested Wingle 30 times, he has been convicted 10 times on charges that led him to be called the fastest thing with a knife on Canton Street. He served a year in Atlanta penitentiary for dealing in narcotics and in 1918 he went down to Ohio penitentiary for a three year term for carrying concealed weapons. After that, Wingle settled most of his disputes with a knife.
“Gun gets a fellow in trouble” Wingle said that often. And sure enough, a gun got him.
There’s no mention of why Leroy Wagner was called “Big Wingle” but if the current urban dictionary and other online sources are correct, it could be that Wagner not only was known for wielding not just one large weapon, but two,..if you get my drift.
There many tales written in the News Bee during that time frame that employed this cocky type of Mickey Spillane prose as they conjure up a much more vivid picture of the scene and the actors of the times who not only have a name but have a character and a story and jump off the page into your mind’s eye.
My thanks to those writers.
And my thanks to the Toledo Blade who owns the News Bee archive file.
As I’ve spent hours surfing the headlines of yesterday’s newspapers, one of the first odd words I happened upon was the word “Yegg”. It didn’t take long to determine that it was the term our grandparents used to describe burglars or safe robbers or specifically those who blew up the safes in stores and banks to get at the stash of cash on hand. In the early part of the 20th century it was in common use, however its origin remains murky at best. Crime slang is nothing new, however, as police and criminals have used their own street vernacular for many decades. In Toledo, the police department and local criminal elements were also fluent in the jargon of the day. And much of that lexicon, like the word Yegg has passed into obscurity. In a 1927 Toledo News Bee article, I found an interesting glossary of these old terms from a hundred years ago. Colorful indeed and useful when reading and translating old police reports. Toledo Police Detective William Culver, who gained a national repuation for astute police work, shared one particular example using the underworld criminalese of the day with the News Bee readers.
“A front office man and a finger dick with a fanatic and filthy smoke got by the announcer and rushed a mob in the joint”.
So what does it mean?
Culver says it meant “a headquarters man and a detective were accompanied by a prohibition agent using gas bombs and managed to elude the “lookout” man and raid a gang of crooks at a “vice resort”, which was a gambling and drinking parlor.
Here are some other crime expressions of the day recorded by Toledo Police officers.
The eye ————- Detective agency
Track 13 and a Washout — A life sentence in a western prison.
The Third Rail —- a pickpocket caught on a railroad train
Toadskins ———- Papermoney
Undershine ——— A fur coat
Vog ——————- A chicken thief
Trolley —————–A wire or string used to pass paper from cell-to-cell.
Vermont Charity — Sympathy
Ludy——————-Someone who passes phony money for a counterfeiter
Found a story the other day from a 1920’s Toledo News Bee that got my attention. The date was June 12, 1928 and the front page headline read “Weird Dixon Estate Stumps Appraisers”. Turns out that at one time in Toledo, there was a well known inn that served not only food for the hungry, but those who hungered for the bizarre. Seems that a gent by the name of Charles N. Dixon ran the “famous” Dixon Inn at 44-48 St. Clair Street in downtown Toledo for a number of of years. The inn also doubled as a museum which certainly provided the topic of great dinner table conversation. The dusty rooms at the Inn featured a deviant’s delight, such as a stuffed sea serpent, a “greasy” hangman’s rope, a skeleton, a petrified man, tools used for torture, bloodied hand weapons, statues, swords, stuffed animals and a long list of oddities that might make Mr. Ripley green with envy. The gist of this particular story was not about the Dixon Inn, per se, but rather about the fact that Mr. Dixon had died and his belongings were now up for auction and appraisers just weren’t sure what the market rate might be for a genuine authenticated sea serpent. As a group of local appraisers walked through the museum to get a better look, the News Bee reporter tagged along and recounted the tour this way:
“the mounted animals, the stuffed fish and preserved specimens of rare fowl watched the procedure with glassy and impersonal stares…The Museum, once the gathering place of the demi-monde and the ultra Bohemian, now is a place of oppressive and profound silence, cluttered with all the nightmarish specimens that one eccentric could gather together in a lifetime.”
The reporter explains that Dixon began collecting these weird artifacts as a child growing up on a ranch in the West and kept collecting them through adulthood. After he moved to Toledo and opened the inn, he started stuffing the rooms of the building with skeletons, Indian hatchets, bloodied bayonets and weapons of all types and sizes that still hadn’t been cleaned from use. They piled up in the dusty and damp old rooms with other items of the weird including pillories, bones of unknown animals and the grinning skulls of prehistoric people. One of his favorite possessions was a “Great Stone Face” that reportedly had been dug up on Monroe Street during the excavation for a sewer line and was thought to be the work of Mound Builders. As to whatever happened to Mr. Dixon’s den of darkness, I am still trying to find out. I can only surmise that such a collection today might actually fetch an substantial sum were it to go up for auction. As for the Dixon Inn, it would appear that its location would now be in the same block on St. Clair St. where Fifth-Third field is today. Kind of makes me wonder what’s buried under first base.
This story has lots of unanswered questions and is really a work in progress, posted in the hopes that maybe one of our readers knows something about the Dixon Inn they could share. In the meantime, I am also embarking on a search for more information about the fate of these strange artifacts and man who was responsible for this most unusual Toledo museum, Mr. Charles N. Dixon. Updates, to be forthcoming. By the way if you too are wondering about the word “demi-mond”, according to one Internet dictionary it is a “group whose respectability is dubious or whose success is marginal: the literary demimonde of ghost writers, hacks, and publicists. Also called demiworlds” FYI- Lou
Ironically, as if one tragedy to unfold in the headlines that week of 1902 was not enough to absorb, the day after Toledo’s terrible river tragedy, came word of catastrophic volcanic eruptions in the West Indies on the islands of Martinique and St. Vincent. Not one but two volcanoes erupted within hours of each other. Both were deadly, but the eruption of Mt. Pelee at Martinique was mind numbing with over 25,000 dead at St Pierre, essentially the entire city caught in the mountain of molten lava that mushroomed down the slope burying everything in the path. The earth’s convulsions spared few from he wrath of fire and rock. The stories did not need any florid embellishments, for the reality was sensational and horrid as the mind’s eye could envision. Toledo’s river horror would share ink and front page headline space with this seismic event of human calamity for the next week. The astonishing events in the Caribbean did little to impede or diminish the coverage of the the Frolic accident on the Maumee River and the full spectrum of the community response to it.
Toledo’s downtown streets were not immune to the ravages, as street level temps were recorded in excess of 110 degrees for a week of afternoons. At the Jamra’s Tobacco Company in the 500 block of Monroe Street, the thermometer recorded 119 degrees on the afternoon of July 8
THE TOLEDO GAZETTE 