Toledo is a city of about 300,000 people just over the Ohio state line, about 40 minutes south of Ann Arbor on US-23. Toledo's position on Lake Erie and on the land routes to Chicago made it a significant industrial city. There are several worthwhile attractions in Toledo, including the Toledo Zoo, Toledo Museum of Art, COSI (a science museum), and the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team. Many Ann Arbor residents rarely or never visit Toledo, however, despite its proximity.
Toledo is still an important transportation hub; car travelers can pick up I-80 for travel to the East Coast, and Amtrak connects Toledo to Chicago, DC, Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York (City and upstate destinations).
In 1835, the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory fought the Toledo War, a boundary dispute that included the City of Toledo and a strip of land running west to Indiana. No one was killed in this "war", which was settled when the Federal government required Michigan to give up its claim in order to be granted Statehood; in exchange, Michigan would be given the Upper Peninsula, then thought relatively worthless. These terms were agreed to in a territorial convention known as the Frostbitten Convention held in Ann Arbor in December of 1836; a historical marker at the Washtenaw County Courthouse, at Huron Street and Fourth Avenue, recounts this story.
Toledo links
- Toledowiki on Localwiki
- Wikipedia: Toledo, Ohio
- Wikipedia: Toledo War
- James Hogaboam's Bean Creek Valley (Hudson, Mich., 1876) has an eye-witness account of the Toledo War.
- The Toledo Blade is one of America's newspapers
- Toledo Bloggers: http://toledobloggers.com/
- Toledo Wiki: http://toledowiki.net
