Photo History Of My Hometown... Toledo, Ohio

http://buckeyebeer20000.tripod.com/toledoohiomemoriesinpictures/index.html

The link above has many different categories of photos. Or just start with "Swanye Field" and keep clicking the NEXT button at the bottom of each page. -- BTW, "Swanye Field" is where Casey Stengel (in 1927) used to manage the Toledo Mud Hens before moving to the NY Yankees. The Mud Hens are one of the very oldest professional baseball teams in America (Est. 1883) ... and even hired the first black players in 1884. - Toledo was also home to the Toledo Maroons, one of the original NFL football teams... as well as the Toledo Red Men (Redmen) basketball team, one of the original teams in the NBA. -- Plus, the greatest Heavyweight Championship Fight ever was fought in Toledo on July 4, 1919 between Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard. Sports have always been huge in Toledo. My Grandfather, Orien B. Hill, attended that event, as did people like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and many other big celebrities of that era. It was the biggest event ever in the history of Toledo... even to this day.

PS: Toledo also had numerous car manufacturers and as many a 14 different breweries, in addition to countless other businesses and industries. The "Toledo" / "Pope-Toledo" became the Willy's Overland and was 2nd in size only to Ford. -- And Toledoan Roy Knubenshue designed, built and flew the first airship... and once landed it on top of the Spitzer Bldg. in downtown Toledo. He later flew it to NYC for the World's Fair. Roy was a HUGE an aviation pioneer... almost as big as the Wright Bros. were at the same time further down in Ohio in Dayton, OH.

If you liked these photos, here is a bigger and better link to many more old photos, via The Historic Old West End of Toledo website. Toledo has the nation's largest collection of Edwardian and Victorian homes! Click on the links on the right for many different kinds of photos. Enjoy! -- http://www.oldwestendtoledo.com/index.html

Long story short, I feel VERY fortunate to have been born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. My father, both grandfathers and several uncles all worked for the New York Central System Railroad. I was raised in South Toledo... went to the Univ. of Toledo... taught at Waite High School... before moving to SE Florida. (See my profile on the right hand side of this blog.)

--David Hill