TOLEDO. The third city of Ohio and the comity-seat of Lucas County, situated at the mouth of the Maumee River where it enters Lake Eric by way of Maumee Day; 130 miles north of Columbus (Map: Ohio, C 2). The Maumee through the city averages half a mile in width, and is navigable for lake vessels of the largest size. There is an excellent harbor with 25 miles of docks, eight miles of which are devoted to coal and ore. A straight channel, 400 feet wide and 21 feet deep, leads to the lake. Six passenger steamship lines connect the city with '.Mackinac, Detroit, Montreal, and other river and lake cities. Nineteen railroads enter the city. in cluding five divisions of the Lake Shore and two divisions of the Wabash. It is the terminus of the Ohio Central and is tapped by the Michi gan Central. It is the terminus of the Penn sylvania. Toledo. Saint Louis and Kansas City, Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton, Hocking Val ley, Wheeling and Lake Erie, Pere Marquette, Detroit, Toledo and Milwaukee, Ann Arbor. and Grand Trunk railroads. These lines are inter sected and connected by the Toledo Railway and Terminal Company's belt line, which maintains an immense union passenger and freight depot and a lake transfer house. There are 110 miles of street railroads reaching every portion of the city. The river is spanned by five railroad and two passenger bridges.
Just outside the city limits are the flourishing suburbs of Rossford, with the celebrated Ford plate glass works, and West Toledo. A large portion of the city rests on made ground, as the greater part of its site was formerly a swamp, the first settlements having been made on two hills that rose from this swamp. The streets are paved with brick, asphalt, and stone, and throughout the residential portions are well planted with shade trees. The city has 848 acres of parks, including Walbridge Park, with fine zoological gardens and the city greenhouse; Ottawa Park, with a public golf course; River side, Bay View, Navarre, City, and Collins parks; and planted triangles in all sections. The out lying parks are connected by a fine houlevdrd about 25 miles in length, as yet completed only in part. Public playgrounds for children are situated in populous quarters of the city. There is a municipally owned cemetery which is self supporting.
Among the more prominent buildings are the county court-house in the centre of the city with a beautiful park containing a fine statue of President McKinley; the Public Library; the Soldiers' Memorial Building, erected by the city at a cost of $100,000 for the soldiers and sailors of Lucas County; the Toledo Club; •the Spitzer office building; and Saint Patrick's and Saint Paul's churches. There arc 42 public school buildings, including two high schools and a manual training school and university. Toledo
Medical College has a high standing and is af forded special clinical facilities by the Toledo and Saint Vincent's hospitals, as well as by a number of private hospitals. There are numer ous private educational institutions, including Saint John's College. The Public Library (46,000 volumes) maintains a reference library and read ing rooms. It has five sub-stations.
Toledo is the meeting point of the iron ore from the Lake Superior region and the coal of Ohio and Virginia. It is the central point of the northwestern Ohio oil fields, and is sur rounded by a fine agricultural country especially adapted to frnit-gardening. The building of lake and ocean vessels is extensively carried on, and among the more important manufactures are plate glass, cut glass, bicycles, automobiles, agri cultural implements, malt liquors, clothing, mal leable iron, foundry products, tobacco, etc. In the census year 1900 the various industries were capitalized at $25.592,000 and had an output valued at $37,372.000. There is a very large grain trade, and the clover-seed market is second only to that of Chicago. Vessels to the number of 2313, having an aggregate tonnage of 1,854, touched at the port in 1902. In shipment of coal Toledo leads every lake port hut Cleve land.
The government, under the new charter, is vested in a mayor, a council of 16 members, a board of public service. city solicitor, treasurer, and auditor, all elected by the people; a hoard of public safety appointed by the mayor if the coun cil indorses his appointments, if not, by the Gov ernor of the State ; and a number of minor boards, health, library, sinking fund, etc., ap pointed by the mayor. Toledo spends annually more than $2,800,000, exclusive of amounts for public schools; but a considerable portion of this goes for interest on the bonded debt. The water works are municipally owned and operated, and have a capacity of 45,000,000 gallons, with an average daily consumption of 10,000,000 gallons. The supply is drawn from the -Maumee River. Plans are prepared for a $750,000 filtering plant. The sewerage system comprises 140.3 miles of mains.
The site of Toledo was a favorite resort of the Miami Indians in the eighteenth century. The place was first settled in 1832 and was char tered as a city in 1837, its population then being less than 1000. With the territory it was claimed for several years by both Ohio and Michigan, the dispute culminating in 1835 in the so-called 'Toledo War' (q.v.)—a war of words only. The population in 1840 was 1222; in 1850, 3829; in 1860, 13,708; in 1870, 31.584; in 1880, 50.137; in 1890, and in 1900, 131,822. The total in 1900 included 27.822 per sons of foreign birth and 1710 of negro descent.