University of Toledo - Toledo, Ohio

North side of campus, between University Hall and Bancroft Street. Credit: Bradley Menard

The University of Toledo! We're taking a side trip quickly up to Ohio to give us a break from all things North Carolina. For now. I got plenty of Carolina afterwards.

Thanks, Bradley, for the picture! I know my request was sudden, but it's not easy to travel to all these markers myself!

Note: I couldn't find a lot of sources and stories on this post. So this will be more like a timeline and less like a story about a university in Ohio (I'd prefer the latter, if I could, and I know many readers would agree with me). So help me out and send me some more interesting history/information!

EDIT: A source told me that if you ever visit Toledo, eat all the Middle Eastern food, go visit the zoo (second best in the country!) and check out the art museum. See?? The Midwest is interesting! It's not just cornfields!

Go Rockets! (Source)

University of Toledo! In...well, Toledo, Ohio, of course. The school is a large research university, for those of you who don't know of it, with about 23,000 students on its campus. They play in Division I (Bowl Division, for those who care) in the Mid-American Conference. Some of the more basketball-inclined may recognize them from their occasional appearances in March Madness (Copyrighted by NCAA). They have a football rivalry with the Bowling Green State University Eagles, where the schools would fight for the "Peace Pipe" (can't find a non-Wikipedia citation, which makes me sad). This Peace Pipe has been replaced by the "Battle of I-75".

But why the Rockets? This gnome will tell you because their notoriously bad football team won a game in Pittsburgh in 1923, and were called the "Skyrockets" as a result. Humans' penchant for shortening nicknames means that this name for the mascot gets shortened to the Rockets. According to Wikipedia, the name comes from a student who was in the press box during Toledo's amazing football game against then-powerhouse Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon), because of their "flashy performance against a superior team". I hate citing from Wikipedia, but that's all I have. If you, dear reader, have other sources, or even other stories, then leave a comment!

(Source)

The University of Toledo was founded in 1872 as the Toledo University of Arts and Trades by the local editor, Jessup Wakeman Scott. Scott, in 1868, believed that not only should the city produce and train young people ready for the responsibilities that lay ahead, he also believed that the center of commerce would move westward to Toledo (and by 1900, no less). So he donated 160 acres to found what would become the University to help achieve his vision of what Toledo could achieve. There was a hiccup though: while Scott provided the land on which the institution would be, he expected the city to provide the funds and yet they couldn't cough up the money. So they opened to students in the basement of a church in 1875. The University's history page says it was a Unitarian Church on Adams and 10th Streets, but a "memoir" (frankly, it's more like some guy wrote down what he could remember with not a clear story thread to it) stated that the First Unitarian Church in the city was founded in 1862 at Adams and Superior streets. I'm definitely more knowledgeable on North Carolina history, and not Ohio history, so if someone knows this point better, please leave me a comment!

Regardless, the University did the best they could within their circumstances, teaching about two or three classes to 26 students. The University tried to push through despite having no funding, but closed in 1878. However, when the assets of the University became city property, and when combined with increasing interest in manual schools, the University reopened as the Toledo Manual Training School in 1884 (though operating in two rooms of Central High School, which is currently Central Catholic High School) to provide vocational training to secondary school students. The School moved into its own building on the High School's campus a year later in 1885, and admitted girls a year after that in 1886 (progressive!). In 1904, the school affiliated with the local Toledo Medical College, which unfortunately closed in 1914 due to new licensing standards for physicians at the time.

University Hall, first building on the current campus built in 1931 (Source)

The University we know of today was inherited from the Manual School, when it changed its name to Toledo University in 1914 and moved to a different building. However, it didn't move to its current campus on Bancroft Street until 1931, when University Hall was built (above). And it gained official state university status (and its current name) in 1967. The school also merged with the Medical University of Ohio, very recently (relatively speaking) in 2006.

Frankly, I wish I could say more about this University. I think that every school has its history, traditions, rumors, etc., and because I live in a different state and identify with a different crowd (go Heels!), I'm not as familiar with these things nor am I able to find/source them. So if you, dear reader, know more, please let me know! Thanks!