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They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Today we're joined by Tedd Long, a passionate historian, storyteller, and author whose work brings Toledo's rich past vividly to life.

His latest book, Toledo 1856 A Frontier Town Comes of Age, offers a compelling look at a pivotal year in the city's development.

When Toledo began its transformation from a rugged frontier town into a thriving urban center.

Through meticulous research and engaging narrative.

Ted captures the spirit, the struggles and the triumphs of peopl who shaped the city's identity.

Whether you're a lifelong Toledo in or newly curious about its roots, this conversation promises to deepen your appreciation for the stories that built the Glass City.

I'm Doni Miller, and welcome to the Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You know that.

You can email me at Doni underscore Miller at WGTE dot org.

And for this episode and other additional extras please go to WGTE.org.

To the poin it is my honor and my pleasure to have Tedd Long with us today.

Ted: Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Doni: First of all, your energy is just amazing to me.

Ted: Thank you.

Doni: This is your fifth book that we're going to talk about today.

And if we have a minute, just a minute at the end, I do want to talk about the restaurant book.

Ted: Oh, we have to.

Doni: Yes, yes.

But today we're talking about Toledo, 1856.

A frontier town comes of age.

What made you decide on this particular topic?

Ted: Well, it was actually a I fell into it literally.

Doni: Literally, Ted literally I was doing some work just after finishing the restaurant book and had a good friend reach out to me and asked me, do you think there was a restaurant in the island housed hotel?

Now the island hous was the first hotel slash train depot, on the middle grounds.

Wow.

And so I did some research.

Found out there was, in fact, a restaurant, place serving food.

But I also discovered an April 1856, four column front page story in the blade in which they described everything that was going on at the middle grounds at that time, because that was the year that the first bridge over the river showed up that brought trains into the middle grounds.

There were they were just finishing the island house.

They were doing all this work.

And I was just fascinated.

And I thought, you know, that probably was the year.

It was really the pivotal year in which Toledo moved from, you know, Frogtown to becoming a real city.

And so I just decided to do a deep dive and and find ou what else was going on in 1856.

Doni: ow do you begi to research something like this?

Ted: Well, we're we're lucky.

Very lucky.

Now because, about a year and a half ago, the Toledo Blade was fully digitized.

And that means in the past, for my other books, I had to know what date I was interested in.

Go down to main library, pull the microfilm, and then search for the story that I was looking for.

Now I have the ability.

Just sitting in my office, I can do a boolean searc in digital, do a digital search across the blade, all going all the way back to 1840.

So I start with newspaper.

Then I try to also find letters or journals or diaries.

Those are always fascinating ways to experience history.

I think they're more raw.

You get the, you know, the emotion.

And then, I spent a day at Kennedy Center at UT, and I went through all of the notes from City Council in the year 1856 to see, to see what was going on, what ordinance were being passed.

There was a lot of politics.

Doni: what was going on in city council?

Ted: And it was interesting.

There was a there were a few battles going on about, mostly about the gas line that was being built.

Toledo had not yet complete the gas line so they could light the city at night.

So they were trying to determine which streets would be lit first.

And you could imagine the politics.

You know, each ward was represented by a council person who wanted, you know, to make sure they were lit up before somebody else was.

A lot of talk about sidewalks and streets, sewers, just infrastructure, trying to get all this done.

Doni: Kind of like now.

Ted: Yeah.

It is very similar to what we deal with today.

I think what's interesting then was also, you know, they were dreamers.

They, you know, they were still sitting there was still somewhat of a swampy, kind of muddy, city or village, as you might say.

But they had a vision for what it was going to be.

So they were trying to establish infrastructure for what Toledo would grow up to become.

Doni: Wow.

What did you find?

First of all, did you learn anything that just sticks with you?

Ted: I thin one of the things I learned was one thing that fascinated me was, in one sense, you're reading a descriptions of just about how backwoods it was in terms of the swamps.

They were trying to figure out how to get fresh water.

Artesian wells weren' working out very well for them.

They ended up having to build a system where they were rolling the water out of the river.

You know, just it really wasn't something that, you know, was appealing to me anyway.

Yeah.

And yet people just keep coming and they just keep coming.

And I think it was the it was the idea of the location sitting there right on the river, right on the western basin of Lake Erie.

Then the railroads showed up and people just thought, this town is going to take off.

I want to get there.

I want to be in on the ground floor.

And so on one hand you have this muddy frog town, and on the other hand, you have this vision for what people saw coming.

Doni: It must've been, curious back then as people were learning what they could do and learning what was possible.

Do you see it?

Did you see any any things that were comparable to what was going on now, Ted: in terms of other cities or Doni: No, just between what we were doing in, in that era and have we learned any lessons?

Are we making the same mistakes or are we having the same conversations we were having then?

Ted: I think one thing tha always set Toledo apart for me, as I looked at the picture from a history standpoint, we've always get these great chances and somehow we kind of it falls away.

One of my books, the Toledo Papers, I have a whole chapter about the greatest event that never happened, and it was the World's Fair that they were going to hold in Toledo in 1904, which fell apart.

And we didn't we didn't actually host it.

And it was because everybody starte going in different directions.

And some of it was greed, you know everybody wanted to make a buck.

And I think back in 185 there was some of that going on.

But people work together.

There was a lot of collaboration.

I think there was a lot of pride, and I think we missed that today.

And so those were two things that I would hope would eventually come back to the, you know, that idea of working togethe and having pride in your city.

Doni: Did the pride come from and the working together, did it come from the community back then, or did i come from the elected officials?

Ted: No, I think it came fro the community as well, I think.

Well, I think people showed up here and, you know, they looked around and they said, well, you know, we're in this together.

You know, we're not going to get out of this.

As individuals.

And so I think they work togethe interest in the ethnic enclaves that are part of Toledo.

If I do a tour on top of one Seagate, where we look down on the city from all four corners, and you can see the church steeples and then talk about the ethnic communitie that were surrounded by these.

It's surrounded these churches and it's it's a city that had all kinds of great, you know, diversity.

And in early days, those ethnic enclaves stayed together.

You know, a lot of people come from the original country and spoke their original language an they kind of hung out together.

But then as generations came through Toled really became this melting pot.

And you see that in the history of Toledo.

And that's, I think, one of the other things that kind of brought pride in people is that they were proud that they were working together and living together and working together to make the city a better place.

Doni: You know I didn't know about those tours.

When do they happen?

Ted: I do.

Probably 4 or 5 a year, but one I do every year is for leadership.

Toledo.

Yes.

And, we do that every spring.

I'll send you an invite to join.

Doni: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a great opportunity, I think, to talk about Toledo as it is now.

And I'm sure you incorporate some of the things that you've learned.

Ted: It is.

Yeah.

And we also get int the architectural history too, which is fun.

You know, I, one of the things I learned in this book was in 1856, they referred to what we call as the middle grounds.

Yeah.

As the middle ground.

Singular.

It was just because at that time, it was just this, you know, swampy plot of ground that kind of jutted out in the river.

But as things started to progress and they starte bringing in all these different, you know, sophisticated, you know, railroads, hotels, they started referring to it as the middle grounds because it had so many things going on, it going on, on it.

And that was going to be the original downtown.

And, until there was a flood late in 1870s, it was an ice dam that released in the spring.

And then there was another one the following year and they realized, look this is not going to work out.

We're going to move up to higher ground.

And that's when they starte building what we know downtown as downtown today.

So we can see all that from u on top of One Seagate as well.

Doni: Wow.

I want to talk to you.

We're going to go, for a little break, but when we come back, I'd like to talk to you about wha life was really like back then.

Okay, great.

Yeah I would like to talk about that.

So you'll stay with me, right?

You bet.

Thank you.

We will be right back.

To me, community means connecting to others.

What will it really take to bring peace to Toledo's neighborhoods?

I love it here.

Yeah, we're a community committed to education.

Discover new ideas, dive into exciting subjects, and engage with the world around you.

It's all chapters in a book.

I would send them personally a t shirt.

Crim doesn't pay in the old West End.

Pass it on.

That's how we cleaned up the neighborhood.

Brings back memorie that you don't think are there.

You know, the public media invites you to get out and play day.

The people of Toledo have really become family.

You know, they walk in and it was just like, hey, it's so good to see you.

Hello there, and welcome to a public media town hall meeting.

The where you come to watch, listen and learn.

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Doni: I would really like to hear from you.

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To the point I am talking to Tedd Long that you know that if you wer with us during the first segment and we are talking about this incredibly interesting book that you've gotten, I'm going to hold it up here, can I hold it up.

Caleb, can you see it?

Toledo, 1856.

Frontier town comes of age.

Great read.

Ted: Thank you.

Doni: Fun.

Really fun.

Read.

How would you describe the community in 1856?

Socially and economically?

Ted: Well, I think it was a fairly divers community in terms of you had, an influx of both, German and Irish that came in early on that helped build the canal.

By now, the canal is there.

Now they're working in different areas.

And then I refer in the book, you have all those folks that came in from the East, many of whom upstate New York came down the Erie Canal across the lake, and then into, the Maumee avoided the Great Black Swamp completely.

And that's how they got here first.

And those you found, were more in the service jobs and in the clergy and more, I guess would be the, upper middle class or higher class.

The, I think they all tended to work, like I said before, work well together.

The workers, you know, had some complaints about, different aspects of what work they did but certainly we weren't dealing with, major strikes or anything like that at that time.

We had, obviously 185 being so close to the Civil War.

We had some real, I guess, debates about what was going on north versus south.

Toledo was part of the Undergroun Railroad, always very important part of the Underground Railroad because of our location.

And so people like, James Ashley, congressman, eventually from our area came up here from dow along the river and around 1855.

Originally on his way by the way to Minneapolis to get away from that southern exposure.

He wanted to go as far north as possible, and he shows up in Toledo and he says, I really don't have to go any further.

You coul he could feel that Toledo was, an abolitionist town and that he wasn't going to have the concerns that he had when he was in southern Ohio.

But that debate is going on pretty strong at that time.

You also have major temperance movements that are getting started.

So what I always found was fascinating that preachers giving temperance speeches on the second floor of buildings where the saloon was in the first person.

But, so there was a lot of debate going on about that time is when we started seeing the newspapers playing a major role in thes debates with their editorials.

And, peopl were kind of splitting up into, the new Republican Party versus the, the Democrats and the no, nothing party.

So there was a lot of politics going on.

Doni: Was the media very influential back then?

Ted: I think they were I think the media I mean, I point out that the media and the clergy were very influential in that time and how people viewed, you know, their environment.

Doni: Well, who were you mentioned?

One.

But were there other people that stood out in term of their leadership and their, their energy towards shapin what Toledo was at that point?

Ted: Yeah.

So we're all familiar with Dorr Street in Toledo.

And Mayor Dorr, I think, did four terms in that period, around eight early 1850s to the Civil War.

Was very passionate about what Toledo could be.

He had a lot of vision about, you know, what?

Being located on the river and the railroads and the, the Lake Erie.

What, what all that came together.

Doni: So Dorr St.

was named after a mayor?

Ted: Yeah, Doni I did not know that.

Ted: Yes.

Isn't that amazing?

Doni: Yeah, yeah.

Ted: I do tours at Woodlawn.

And one of the first things that people do when I start to walk them through is they'll see, you know, see Secor.

They'll see Reynolds and they'll see.

And they immediately think of street names.

Doni: Right.

Ted: Yeah.

Doni: All right, all right.

So, Mayor Dorr.

Anyone else that stands out?

Ted: Well, there was a numbe of people within city council.

And there was I found a very unusual, kind of debate that was going on in city council.

If you are into this, the history of Toledo, you know that in 1835, you know, this area was part of the Toledo War between Michigan Territory and a state of Ohio over who was going to get Toledo.

And one of the major player in that, was Benjamin Stickney and Benjamin Stickney sons one Stickney and two Stickney.

Doni: Oh, my gosh.

Ted: Yeah.

Benjamin Stickney had a belief that he didn't want to name his children names.

They had to have to live with their entire lives.

So he gave them temporary names.

So he named his two boys, one and two.

And both of them liked it s much, they kept it real lives.

So by 1856, two.

Stickney is a ward councilman, and he resigns.

And there was a lot of, back door stuff going on in which a friend was the given his ward as, councilman.

And there was a big debate about whether they would see him or not.

And, I was kind of surprised.

And then again, a I thought about it, it's like, you know, things just don't change.

You know, it's Doni: they don't seem to seem to.

One of the things that I think we've all always been lucky about in this community i the location of the community.

We're right by the Great Lakes or right by a railroad.

We've got great transportation.

Do you think that the location of the city helpe influence its direction at all?

Ted: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know I mean, essentially there was, you know, leading up to Toledo becoming Toledo.

There was a number of, cities that were trying to become what Toledo became by being that terminus on the Miami Erie Canal.

And that was reall what was going on in the 1830s.

People just basically juggling to see who was going to basically get that contract.

And i was actually Benjamin Stickney who earlier had believed and told everyone, we always want to be part of Michigan Territory.

Let's taxes.

But then when he figured out Ohio was going to put the money up for the canal, he was like, wait a minute.

We need to be part of Ohio.

He completely switched his position.

And that's how the Ohio Toledo, Michigan, war was started.

And we eventually win that.

Michigan gets the Upper Peninsula state of Ohio gets Toledo.

And it was really all about geography.

I think, same thing wit the railroads coming to Toledo.

It was just great intersection for, everything going on in the Midwest Doni: and the railroads, as you call it in, in your book, the railroads were extremely influential, Ted: and they really were.

And I think we don't think about that today.

Doni: We don't.

But, you know, at one tim we were second only to Chicago and the number of rail lines coming into the city.

So and it's again, geography getting around the lake.

Then everybody wants t something going up to Detroit.

Everybody wants something headed to Chicago.

Toledo's that perfect kind of, you know, point to, to put your railroad through.

Doni: What do you think was, at least from your research, what do you think the most important inciden or the most important episode, was that occurred in that time period Ted: in 1856?

Doni: Yeah.

Ted: I, I don't know if it was one particular incident as much as I think it was by the beginning of the year, as you read letters and, and the, newspapers.

Toledo was kind of unsure wha was going to happen politically.

You've got things going on in Kansas.

You have the no nothing party.

You've got other things going on.

And I think by the end of 1856, I think Toledo as a whole was firmly established as a northern abolitionist, community.

And, you can just see that kind of in that short one year period that it all kind of came together.

And there wa political conventions that year.

You have a presidential election going on that year.

All that kind of came to a head.

Doni: Would you have described the city as an activist city at that time?

Ted: I you know Doni: Or were we still sort of centrist?

Ted: I think we were kind of an activist.

I think it was beginning to start, you know, happened with folks like James Ashley arriving.

His wife, by the way, was ver active in the women's movement.

She chaired the first meeting, held in Toledo later on.

But, yeah, I think, there was also I think the clergy was very active.

One of the largest African-American churches was headed up by a former, someone who came up through the Underground Railroad.

So he really understood what was at stake.

And I and I think that also changed things as well.

Doni: Wow.

And there was, there was a strong women's movement that happened in Toledo, or at least that was fueled.

Ted: Absolutely.

Yeah.

And covered that in my I have a I think it was my second book called Forgotten Visitors, where I talk about maybe 25 people who visited Toledo over the last 200 years that you really wouldn't think about.

And I talk about, Stanton and and, the other women's leader.

I'm sorry if I can't come off my top of my head right now anyway.

Yeah.

A week after their arrival, there was a convention held in Toledo.

Women gathered together and formed the the first womens right group.

Doni: And Katie Stanton was here?

Ted: Oh, absolutely.

Yeah She stayed at the Oliver house.

Doni: Wow.

Yeah.

That must have been, quite a tumultuous time.

Ted: I think, you know, what was interesting is, they said that when the women would come to these smaller communities and speak, men would show u just to see what a woman could do, you know, because in Toled that you just didn't see that.

And now someone from outside would come in and speak to a large group and show that, you know, women were on par with men in many, many ways.

And and I think that was it shook people up.

Doni: Yeah.

I'm I'm trying hard not to laugh here.

It's it's hard for men to learn that lesson.

Ted: It still is, isn't it?

Doni: Still is.

It still is.

Yeah.

So we have just a couple of minutes left, and I want to ask you something about the restaurant.

Ted: Sure.

Doni: All right.

So of all of the restaurants, what's your favorite?

Ted: S these are all lost restaurants.

So they're gone now, which.

So for mine it was crosses on Monroe Street.

The steak place.

Steak place?

Yeah.

It was it was a throwback.

It was mom and pa.

It was nothing fancy, but the food was fantastic.

Amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Doni: Do you miss those ma and pa restaurants as opposed to.

Ted: I think everybody does.

You know, when I talk to people.

What's fun about the book is it's filled with, I worked with a collector here in town, Mark Schneider.

So I have the backstory of 75 different restaurants, but for almost every one, we have their menu napkins, swizzle sticks, matchbooks all in color, you know, and people will pick the book up.

Now open it, and I'll just kind of.

And then they'll just stop and you can see smiles and just watch the memories flooding into.

And then they suddenly you'll put it down and start telling you a story about a family dinner they had, or their grandfather used to meet them somewhere for breakfast.

And Doni: you know which ones I miss?

I missed the ones that were at the colony.

Ted: Oh, yeah.

Doni At the colony Ted: Absolutely.

Doni Isn't that amazing?

Ted: Yeah.

Go into detail about the colony.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I love the fact that there was so many the ethnic groups that really made those restaurants what they were, from th Chinese, Lebanese to the Greeks.

They.

I mean, that's what built these restaurants in Toledo.

And they were, a big part of that story.

Doni: Yeah.

And I think food is a tremendous equalizer.

I think that once you sit in a Chinese restaurant that serves real Chinese food, it it does something.

Ted: Yeah.

Doni: It fosters a kind of togetherness that that few other things you do.

Ted: Agreed.

Yeah.

Doni: Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining.

Ted: Thanks for having me, Doni.

I enjoyed it.

Doni: you are delighful Ted: Thank you.

Doni: So we're going t have you talking back and talk more about food, which is love to do.

Favorite things to talk about.

And thank you all for joining us as well.

And you go out toda make somebodies day a good one.

And you have a good day as well.

We'll see you soon.

Announcer 1: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Announcer 2: To the point is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.