Thursday Thirteen

This week we will focus on our hometown, Toledo, Ohio:

1. One of the best rock and roll bands in the country during the late 1950s and early 1960s was Johnny and the Hurricanes. All of the members of the original Hurricanes were from the Toledo area. Their leader, Johnny Paris, was from Rossford, Ohio, just across the Maumee River.


2. Actor, Jamie Farr of M*A*S*H fame, hails from Toledo, having grown up not far from where Riverside Hospital stands.


3. To resolve the brief but fabled Toledo War, Ohio acquired land settlements that became Toledo and Michigan acquired the Upper Peninsula.


4. Tony Packo's hot dog sauce has been in outer space aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1997.


5. Some of Toledo's nicknames over the years have included "The Glass City", "Frogtown", and "A Renaissance City".


6. The R&B smash-hit artist, Anita Baker, was born in Toledo, OH.


7. The Toledo area became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787.


8. Toledo Inventor, Michael Owens developed the world's first automated bottle-blowing machine, revolutionizing the bottle industry.


9. The Toledo Zoo, consistently rated as one of the nation's ten best, was the first zoo to feature a hippoquarium-style exhibit. *Note: Momma was a volunteer at the Toledo Zoo*


10. In honor of the "sister city" relationship between Toledo, Ohio and Toledo, Spain, the Toledo Zoo incorporated Spanish architecture into their building design throughout the zoo.


11. The Toledo Zoo was started in 1900 with the donation of a woodchuck to the City of Toledo.


12. Toledo native Jason Cameron was the one of the carpenters on the hit TLC show, "While You Were Out", and is currently the host of "Desperate Landscapes" on the DIY Network. He has also done commercials and appeared in TV shows like "Sex in the City", "Guiding Light" and "All My Children".


13. Accumulating snowfall in the months of May and October are extremely rare episodes in Toledo. Strangely 1989 saw both! (On May 7th & October 19th). It's the only time Toledo has ever had this occur in the same calender year!

That's some facts about the town we have lived in all our lives (well except momma lived in the outskirts for several years, but that doesn't really count).We hope you learned some stuff and maybe one day you will come visit our city!