Why do I say Ohio history repeats itself on Downtown Toledo's Ohio Building? It's simple. There's a terra cotta frieze over the second floor that shows the founding of Ohio. They probably shouldn't have limited themselves to the founding. There's no way it would stretch all the way across two walls, so it repeats the same scenes. The frieze is impressive enough, but it's far from all this twelve-story jewel-box has to offer.

The whole building is a riot of white terra cotta and patinaed metal. It has swags, and garlands, and cartouches galore. The main entrance is framed by a tall, wide arch that's covered with decorations. There's not a spare inch of space that's not in use. Above the arch, starting with the third floor, things are toned down a bit. Everything's comparatively plain until you get to the top floor. At that point, the ornament runs rampant again, with faces, and figures, and a row of acanthus leaves. It's enough to make your head spin.

The Ohio building was designed by the local firm of Mills, Rhines, Bellman, and Nordhoff, and built in 1906. It joined several nearby skyscrapers to make Toledo's first urban canyon of a street. You can see from the picture, that it's not quite that way now. The buildings across the street were torn down and replaced by a parking lot.

There's one other interesting thing about the Ohio Building. Back in 1907, it was used for something entirely new. That's when the USA's first continuous radio program was beamed from here to receivers down the street in the Nicholas Building. I can't say broadcast. There weren't enough radios out there at the time.

A lot of people who are concerned about Downtown Toledo are breathing a sigh of relief. Fifth Third Bank has announced that it will move its regional headquarters to One SeaGate, Toledo's tallest semi-vacant building.

One SeaGate was built in 1981, as the headquarters of glass producer Owens-Illinois. O-I, however, moved to a new campus in Perrysburg last year, leaving the 32-story skyscraper on the banks of the Maumee almost completely empty. It's not exactly the best public relations move to have the tallest building in town standing vacant.

I'll admit this is a case of "musical buildings", but it's a welcome announcement. Fifth Third currently occupies the old Nicholas Building on Madison, which was built in 1906.

Let's hope having One SeaGate occupied will get the ball rolling for the rest of Downtown Toledo.

This is astonishingly good timing! I was already excited to find out that one of my favorite authors, Chris Moore, was born in Toledo, and I spent a long time trying to figure out how to talk about him, but he hadn't released a book recently. (Not only was he born in Toledo, but he grew up in Mansfield, and went to OSU!) And then I was at Costco (I can't help it, I love Costco), and I saw Chris Moore's brand new book, You Suck: A Love Story. And I said to myself, "Yes! Finally! I can talk about him!"

I have actually met Chris Moore, and he is a hilarious individual. When he came out with Fluke around two years ago, I worked at his reading, and he actually took a picture of my ankle (which was in a big ugly brace, for various reasons). He was so funny, and so sarcastic, and he had a lot of great things to say about being an author. Namely, he talked about how he went about writing a book, which was to think of a profession that he'd really like to have, and then he researched it until he learned enough about it to think of something that would make it weird.

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner has drawn widespread interest and support by announcing a search for a wi-fi service provider. The city will seek proposals from companies interested in providing city-wide service. If the idea works, Toledo would become the first major Ohio city to offer wireless internet access on a city-wide basis.

The program could be accomplished without cost to the taxpayers and would have some benefits that can't be denied. Not only would all city offices have free wireless internet, but police and firefighters would be able to access maps and criminal record information in their vehicles.

The service would also provide free access in certain public buildings and outdoor areas, such as city parks. Citizens could subscribe to the service at a nominal cost. Discounted service would be available to those with low incomes.

So far, the idea has been receiving widespread support. From what I can see, the whole idea seems to have taken the whole city by surprise. It sounds like a very good idea whose time has come. I'll tell you one thing. It's not every day you hear Fred LeFebvre, a morning host at News Talk WSPD and one of Mayor Finkbeiner's most outspoken critics, yell "good move, mayor! Wooh, hoo"!

I have to admit that "severe weather" warnings seem to be getting more common, along with warnings of "don't go out if you don't have to." I don't think it's because we have more bad weather than ever before. It's just because we hear about it a lot more in this day of instant information. If you'd like to see just how bad Ohio weather can get, and you don't scare easily, there's a good website Ohio History called Severe Weather in Ohio. It might make you a little less ready to run for the basement, thinking the latest storm isn't all that big a deal, or it might make you take the next plane out in terror. i wouldn't recommend that course, though. You can't run from Mother Nature.

The site was developed with information from a book called Thunder in the Heartland: A Chronicle of Outstanding Weather Events in Ohio, by Dr. Thomas Schmidlin and Jeanne Appelhaus Schmidlin. Brief accounts of twenty-five events are presented, with photographs and, in some cases, videos. Whoever designed the site did an excellent job. There's a weather glossary and a good page of links. If you go to Weather for You, you'll find out that, on any given day, there was a time when the weather was a lot worse. Maybe it will make shoveling the snow a little easier. Want a forecast? Just go to the National Weather Service. It's a lot faster than waiting for the news.

The site deals with tornadoes, floods, heat waves, and some mysterious eight-foot waves that hit Cleveland. Toledoans remember the day in, 1992, when twenty-eight tornadoes passed through Northwest Ohio, a record that I'm glad I missed. There is an event on the list that I remember well, even though I survived it in the next state over. January of 1977 is a month I'll never forget. The blisters on my hands from shoveling snow ten times a day for a whole month lasted till spring. I never want to see twenty-five below on a thermometer again! After that shock, it takes a lot to impress me.

And when you think about it, isn't that one of the biggest ones? We don't have a lot of mountains, we have no enormous canyons, we have no volcanoes - I'm thinking that we do however have quite a few really amazing bodies of water, like Lake Erie!

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (and frankly, they're great for giving good information), Lake Erie is a fairly recent phenomenon, less than 4,000 years old. It was formed by glacial deposits (which is one of the reasons it's one of the smallest Great Lakes; by the time the glaciers got this far south, they were pretty thin and didn't have a lot of gouging power). Various natural and geological aspects of northern Ohio caused by Lake Erie include the Black Swamp region (up by Toledo), beach ridges (the dunes!), a score of other lakes and rivers, and a lot of the soil makeup of northern Ohio. It's also part of the Great Lakes, and a part of the Erie Canal and larger waterways that allowed trading to go from the Midwest to the East and Canada! You might also want to check the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio organization, which gives a lot of good information about the lake.

Although there's lots of man-made efforts currently going to keep Lake Erie contained, it was one of the first natural-made wonders of Ohio, and was the cause of a lot of others!

photo credit: katherine galo

Building a corporate headquarters is a statement of confidence in the future. Sometimes, though, the timing just isn't right. Like, well, 1930, for example. The bottom had dropped out of the stock market and times were about as bad as they could get. Not exactly a good time to finish a new skyscraper. Toledo's Ohio Savings and Trust Company found itself in that position. With a lot of fanfare, the company had hired the local architects at Mills, Rhines, Bellman, and Nordhoff to build what was then Toledo's tallest building, a limestone mountain 368 feet high.

So, what happens when you have to pay for a showplace skyscraper when the business climate is just about dead in the water? You try to hang on and hope for the best. They managed for a year and then went belly-up. When the economy improved, Owens-Illinois bought the place and used it as their headquarters from 1945 until 1981.

Ohio Savings and Trust had bad timing, but they succeeded in one goal. They left behind a corporate castle. The structure is a series of set-back sections rising to a cornice with a battlement effect, appropriate for a company that was fighting for its life. The lowest part is decorated with recessed arches, the largest framing the main entrance. That one soars upward to a carved eagle flanked by reliefs of the Roman god Mercury and an allegorical figure of "Commerce". Commerce looks a bit to healthy for the time, though. At several points, as the walls rise, waterspouts in the form of gargoyles extend several feet out from the surface. The tapering layers, restrained decoration, and overall simplicity of the design give Toledo its most noticeable example of the Art Deco Style. It's still one of the tallest buildings in the city and a welcome addition to the skyline.

My first choice for one of Ohio's natural wonders would have to be the Oak Openings region of Northwest Ohio. I'm not alone in that choice. The Nature Conservancy calls this distinctive ecosystem left by glacial Lake Warren, "one of America's last great places".

The oak openings are formed by a layer of sandy soil on a clay base. This blend of sand dunes, stands of trees, and grassland provides a home to a wide variety of wildflowers and native plants. It also shelters wildlife, such as the badger, the lark sparrow, and the Karner blue butterfly. The oak openings cover about 130 square miles of Lucas, Henry, and Fulton Counties, down from their original 300. Development is further shrinking this stretch of oak savanna and wet prairie habitats. Efforts are under way by a variety of public and governmental agencies, including the Green Ribbon Initiative, to lessen the impact of progress and preserve this globally significant resource.

Walking through any of the preserves or recreated oak openings habitats is like nothing I've ever seen. An area like that surrounding the Owens-Corning complex, in Toledo, gives some idea of what this part of Ohio must have been like when the first settlers arrived. That's where the picture was taken. You can imagine what it would be like to walk through those tall grasses without a ready-made path.

We're fortunate to have several parks and preserves to visit for a taste of this unique ecosystem and to learn about Northwest Ohio, as nature made it. The oak openings are one of the wonders, not only of Ohio, but of the United States.

My heart breaks a little every time I see a house or other building with wonderful ornamentations and appointments rot in place. Fortunately, the architectural salvage business is prospering, allowing us to reuse some of those old features in new settings.

Ohio has a number of companies in the trade, but not as many as we might wish. A few of the most prominent:

Old School Architectural Salvage, Cleveland. They offer everything from doors to floors, hardware, water fountains, beams, decking and utility poles. They work mostly wholesale, so call before visiting, 216-509-5303, no web site.

Toledo Architectural Artifacts, Inc. Over 3,000 doors, are included in their 20,000 piece inventory, as well as iron gates, heat vents, and even a lavender cast-iron bathtub.

Scioto Architectural Salvage, Chillicothe. The Scioto Valley, after the opening of the canal, was for a short time the breadbasket of the country, and you can see the effect of that wealth in homes built at that time. This company recycles that craftsmanship. They are currently preparing to host a film crew from the History Channel preparing an hour-long feature on salvage. Their entire catalogue is on-line for your browsing.

Olde Wood Ltd. In North Canton specializes in antique flooring, timber frames and hand-hewn timbers.

Wooden Nickel, Cincinnati. They both sell antique pieces such as bars, stained glass and make reproductions or original designs with period authenticity.

Also don't overlook your local Habitat for Humanity's second-hand shops for antique building supplies

Every now and then, you see a street sign that just sort of jumps out at you. This sign on an alley in Toledo's Vistula Historic District did just that. It's only a little less strange when you notice Eagle, Swan. Dove, and Crane in the same area. But Ostrich?

Some of the interesting stories in the Blog-O-sphere recently-

Gallipolis Daily has an interesting twist on the search for ancient Ohio cave writings.

Writes Like She Talks questions whether Cinci school kids will be permitted field trips to the Creation Museum.

The Chief Source is out in front in the Tressel-hating wave following the OSU-Florida debacle earlier this week.

MyHometownOhio is waxing enthusiastic about the Historic Rehab Tax Credit Taft signed into law just before he left office.

The Cincinnati Blog did a nice piece about the most important and most overreported Ohio stories of 2006.

Politics in Mudville is keeping us up to date with the ongoing comedy/tragedy of the Toledo mayor's actions.

If you know of new, interesting Ohio blogs, please drop us a note!

Just look at that picture. Depressing, isn't it? That's one of Toledo's most interesting landmarks. Well, maybe I'd better say it was one of Toledo's most interesting landmarks. As you can see, it has problems.

The Nasby building was built in 1893. When it was new, it took the phrase "eclectic architecture" to new heights. I mean that both literally and figuratively. Its design was a mixture of Romanesque influences, like the arches and elaborate terra cotta decoration, with Spanish elements that made it resemble a wider version of the Giralda tower in Seville. It was also Toledo's first skyscraper. The base of nine stories was topped by a narrower four-story tower. There was a sort of cupola on top of that. It was impressive.

Visitors to Toledo just can't help noticing the bridge over Swan Creek in front of the headquarters of Owens Corning. It's just unusual enough to be an effective approach to a very unconventional building. The bright blue color goes pretty well with the black and red of the headquarters, too.

Looks sort of lopsided, doesn't it? There's a reason for that. The bridge was meant to open and close. Now, moving a bridge is no easy task. But that strange curve you see at the left made it a lot easier. This is called a rolling lift bridge. That left end is balanced on steel rollers. There used to be big concrete weights attached over there that could be raised and lowered. When that happened, the whole superstructure of the bridge went up and down, too. It was so well balanced on those rollers that there was hardly any friction and the whole thing moved like a charm. It sort of worked like a see-saw. A rolling lift bridge is a kind of bascule bridge, that means see-saw or balance in French. A man from Chicago named William Scherzer came up with the idea back in 1895. The railroads were so impressed with the way the idea worked that soon these contraptions were being used as railroad bridges all over the Northeast. I understand there were some in Cleveland.

According to one of my favorite sources, the Discover Downtown Toledo Walking Tour book published by the UT Urban Affairs Center and the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, Toledo's bridge was built in 1920 and was in working order until 1947. It hasn't been raised since then. Working order or not, it's still a nice place to stand and watch the ducks swimming on Swan Creek.

For a state so far from either ocean, Ohio has had a lot of US Navy ships named in honor of its cities. One such vessel was the first USS Toledo ( C-133). The Toledo was a Baltimore Class Heavy Cruiser, certainly not a small ship. She was 674' 11" long, 70' !0" across the beam, and displaced 13,600 tons.

The Toledo was built in Camden, New Jersey and launched on May 6, 1945. Her first cruise took her to the West Indies, sort of an easy way to start. Then she sailed for Japan, by way of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, to support the occupation forces. The Toledo spent the next few years between Japan and California.

In 1950, with the opening of the Korean War, the USS Toledo faced the first of three combat tours of duty. She bombarded North Korean communications and supply lines on the east coast of the peninsula, before participating in the landing at Inchon, on September 15, 1950. During the course of the war, the Toledo was awarded five Battle Stars for her service.

When the war ended, the Toledo was used for patrol duties and goodwill visits until 1960. By then, she was considered outdated and was decommissioned. She spent the next fourteen years as a reserve ship. In 1974, the USS Toledo was sold for scrap.

For a good photographic archive of the Toledo's years in service, visit the website of the Naval Historical Center. The first page links to two others for a complete history.

It's amazing that a museum that does a tremendous community service by providing hands-on science education to thousands of children would have to struggle to survive, but that's exactly what's happening with COSI Toledo.

You read about COSI Columbus' problems in part one. Toledo's situation is even trickier. This past November, COSI asked the taxpayers to pass a .167 million levy. This was the first such request in the museum's ten year history. Unfortunately, the voters were taking as dim a view of levies as they were of one of the parties. The levy was voted down by the slimmest of margins. Still, the very closeness of the vote gives hope that a new request, perhaps as early as May, will pass. The request would cost money, which is in short supply.

Adding insult to injury in the whole situation is the fact that COSI Toledo won a coveted award from the Institute of Museum and Library Service back in 2005. So, what will happen? It's too early to tell, but one thing is certain. No one in Toledo wants to see COSI close. It's just too much of an asset to the area. The wolf has been driven from the door for a while by the generosity of several foundations, businesses, and individuals who made generous donations to help with operating costs. I tend to doubt that the city government would like to see COSI's location, the former short-lived Portside Festival Marketplace, standing empty. There is also a proposal for a cooperative Science Corridor, encompassing COSI, the Toledo Zoo, and the University of Toledo's medical school. One way or another, Toledo is not likely to give up on an award-winning museum without a fight.