Label
The Clerk Reports
Title
Declaring the intent to designate the building located at 19 S. Superior Street, Toledo, Ohio a historic landmark; and declaring an emergency.
Summary
SUMMARY & BACKGROUND:
The building at 19 S. Superior Street was constructed in 1900 as a saloon with boarding rooms above, a common building type in Toledo’s early twentieth-century Tenderloin District. This district, so named after similar vice areas in other American cities, was located south of the central business district, roughly bounded by Washington Street, Swan Creek, and Michigan Street, with its densest concentration along the 400, 500, and 600 blocks of Lafayette Street.
The Tenderloin was Toledo’s principal vice district, a neighborhood characterized by its saloons, gambling halls, dance halls, wine rooms, and boarding houses, the latter often functioning as brothels. Like comparable districts in other industrial cities, Toledo’s Tenderloin developed organically in an area defined by transience and proximity to transportation infrastructure. The convergence of the Maumee River, Swan Creek, rail lines, and canal routes made the Warehouse District a natural hub for working-class laborers, sailors, railroad men, and travelers seeking inexpensive lodging and entertainment. This same accessibility also drew a wealthier clientele to the Tenderloin’s more elaborate saloons and entertainment venues.
By 1904, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps documented as many as forty-three “female boarding” houses within the Tenderloin, revealing the scale of its local economy. The district sustained bartenders, musicians, cooks, cleaners, and tradesmen, creating a small but vibrant commercial ecosystem that revolved around nightlife and vice. City officials, seeking to contain these activities to a single area, assigned a select police force to maintain order within the Tenderloin. Among them was Detective Lewis B. Tracy, a figure remembered for his compassion and even-handedness. Known affectionately as “Papa Tracy” by many of the women who worked there, he not only enforced the law but also helped residents find access to social and health resources.
In February 1918, under pressure from the U.S. War Department, cities across the nation were ordered to close their vice districts to protect the health of soldiers and workers vital to the World War I effort. Toledo’s Tenderloin District officially closed on May 1, 1918, forcing the expulsion of over 1,300 women from the area. Several former boarding houses were leased by the city and repurposed as temporary hospitals to combat rampant outbreaks of venereal disease, diphtheria, and scarlet fever. Others were abandoned or gradually adapted for industrial and warehousing uses as the neighborhood transitioned into a manufacturing and commercial district.
Following the closure of the Tenderloin, the building at 19 S. Superior Street underwent several transformations that reflected Toledo’s changing urban landscape. By the early 1920s, it housed an automobile repair shop with apartments above. In 1927, it was converted for warehousing, successively storing butter and cheese (1927-1948), meat (1938-1948), marine supplies (1948- 1950), and later a signage company (1951-1952).
In 1954, the building was reborn as the Stanwalt Hotel, created by proprietors Stanley Lewen and Walter Hull, who combined their first names to coin the hotel’s distinctive name. The Stanwalt Hotel operated for more than forty years, until 1996, serving as a modest lodging house during the post-industrial period of the Warehouse District. Since then, it has seen limited use-partially occupied by F.W. Galliers for storage, but has remained largely vacant.
Today, 19 S. Superior Street stands as one of the few surviving physical remnants of Toledo’s historic Tenderloin District, embodying the layered social and economic history of a neighborhood that evolved from vice and entertainment to industry and warehousing, and now toward preservation and reuse Architectural Significance of the Building for consideration to become a Designated Landmark. NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Toledo:
SECTION 1. That this matter be referred to the Toledo City Plan Commission and the Toledo City Historic District for its review, recommendation and appropriate hearing date.
SECTION 2. That this Resolution hereby is declared to be an emergency measure and shall be in force and effect from and after its adoption. The reason for the emergency lies in the fact that same is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety and property, and for the further reason that this Resolution must be immediately effective so that the historic property will be eligible for the federal and/or state historic tax credit as soon as feasibility possible.
Vote on emergency clause: yeas _____, nays _____.
Passed: _________________, as an emergency measure: yeas _____, nays _____.
Attest: ________________________ __________________________________
Clerk of Council President of Council
Approved: _____________________ __________________________________
Mayor
I hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of an Ordinance passed by Council ________________________.
Attest: ________________________
Clerk of Council