Mary talks us through the history of Toledo, including it's early days as the Great Black Swamp. Add the Miami-Erie Canal, and you've got yourself a top spot for glass and automobile manufacturing!
Class Discussion Questions:
1) Why do you think Toledo was called "frogtown" by early settlers? What would you give your town?
2) Why did Port Lawrence and Vistula combine?
3) Why did Michigan want to claim Toledo?
Read the Script:
Did you know that one of the largest cities in Ohio almost wasn't in Ohio? I'm talking about Toledo. It was nearly a part of Michigan. The two states ended up in a pretty heated battle over it, too. But before we get to that, let's rewind back to the city's early days.
A big chunk of the land in Northwest Ohio used to be occupied by the Great Black Swamp. The mushy land was not an easy place to live. European settlers even nicknamed the area where Toledo is, Frog Town. In 1824, Ohio's leaders decided to build a canal between the city of Cincinnati and Lake Erie.
As the Miami-Erie Canal was being planned, plenty of cities in Northwest Ohio wanted the waterway to end at their location. The towns of Port Lawrence and Vistula, decided to combine into one town in order to give themselves better odds at winning the spot. They renamed themselves Toledo. It turns out it must have worked because Toledo did end up as one of the three endpoints to the canal.
But while the canal was under construction, Michigan started the process of becoming a state. While drawing up their border between Ohio in 1835, the area of Toledo came into question, resulting in the Toledo War. Both states claimed that a 468 square mile region on Ohio's northwest border should belong to them. The area was known as the Toledo Strip and included where the Maumee River ran into Lake Erie.
Michigan politician, Steven T. Mason, who was nicknamed, The Boy Governor, said the land was definitely theirs. But then so did Ohio Governor Robert Lucas. The leaders of Toledo saw the canal as their way to success, and urged Ohio to keep them in the state. Things got pretty heated with both sides raising militias and President Andrew Jackson even had to remove Mason from his job to keep the states from starting a civil war.
Eventually both sides did come to an agreement. Ohio would get the strip, and Michigan came out ahead with the upper peninsula. Thus, Toledo was official incorporate in Ohio in 1837. Finally, with the opening of the Miami-Erie Canal in 1845, Toledo was able to make a bit of headway business-wise.
Yet the Great Black Swamp still loomed over the city. The damp land caused outbreaks of deadly illnesses, including cholera, malaria, typhoid fever. And Toledo earned a new nickname, Graveyard of the Midwest. Not a pleasant slogan. By 1850, the state decided that they needed to get rid of the swamp, and began an effort to drain it into Lake Erie.
As trains replaced canals as the preferred trades transportation, Toledo continued to move forward. By the late 1880s the city was the second only to Chicago in the number of railroads in town. With this came manufacturing, specifically glass with the establishment of the The Libbey Glass Company in town.
Toledo's glass companies lead the way in patenting new technology. A patent is a license granted to a person or company to keep others from making or using their invention. While Toledo certainly made a lot of glass in the city, the patents meant that anytime glass makers in another city used ideas patented in Ohio, Toledo makers got a profit. Finally Toledo got a good nickname, The Glass City.
Beyond glass, the city was also known for automobile manufacturing. Willys-Overland was one of the biggest car makers here. For a while, they made more cars than any other company besides Ford. As The Great Depression rolled around, cities like Toledo that relied on manufacturing jobs, struggled to get by.
They did receive a boost with wartime manufacturing for World War II. Willys even made 350,000 jeeps for World War II. After the conflict ended though, times were again difficult for manufacturing hubs like Toledo. Folks moved to suburbs and factories shuttered.
Still, The Glass City, shines on. It remains home to the Libbey Company, and plenty of auto manufacturers. And of course, it's a lot less swampy.