FALL TOUR 2023 ∙ REFLECTIONS

 Toledo Skyline from the Museum

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2023 CSO Fall Tour "Discover The River and Lakes" Toledo, Ohio

The tour kicked off Friday evening September 29th with a welcome to the group by CSO President Mike Morthorst followed by a slide presentation of the coming tour events and period canal photos of former sites that no longer exist in the Toledo area.

Saturday morning the group met for breakfast in the tour hotel and shortly after, the car pool caravan departed for the Jefferson Street Dock in downtown Toledo. We then boarded the tour boat "Sandpiper" for a 2 hour cruise on the Maumee River South toward Perrysburg and the Town of Maumee. Several interesting views were had such as the "Glass City River Wall", a large mural painted on grain silos that is said to be the largest in the world spanning over 170,000 feet and 28 silos of the ADM Grain Facility. It required over 3,000 gallons of paint to complete! Toledo has also been known as the "Glass Capital of the World" due to extensive glass manufacture there.

Upon returning to the dock, we then proceeded to our lunch reservations at the original Tony Packo's Restaurant made renown far and wide by Jamie Farr, (Corporal Klinger) of the MASH TV series fame. We had our fill of some excellent Hungarian fare and were fueled up for the next adventure!

Not far away from Tony Packo's lies the National Museum of the Great Lakes which had been relocated to this much larger facility in Toledo from Vermillion, Ohio. The museum houses extensive marine artifacts as well as the docked Great Lakes Iron Ore Freighter Col. James M. Schoonmaker and the Tug Boat Ohio, both are on display and open for public examination. Several hours were spent here in doing just that!

Saturday evening the group enjoyed a catered banquet dinner at the hotel after which our speaker of the evening Julia Wiley, President of the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Preservation Commission, gave a presentation of the web of intrigue created by spies within General Anthony Wayne's Army both prior to and after the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

Sunday morning saw the group visiting the Ward's Canal East of Toledo where a lake ship building venture in 1870 led to the digging of a 2 mile canal from Cedar Creek to Lake Erie. The canal is now used as a marina access to Lake Erie as well as a water source for Howard Marsh Metropark Wildlife Preserve.

The Maumee Side Cut Park of Toledo Metroparks was the next stop to view the nicely preserved locks completed in 1842 but abandoned in 1850. 4 of the original 6 locks remain within this and Towpath Park just to the North. This concluded the 2023 Fall Tour.

The Canal Society of Ohio, Inc.