TOLEDO (WTOL) - Toledo was a much different city in December of 1958 than it is today. The downtown streets were filled with the cacophony and crush of Christmas shoppers. The department stores like Tiedtke's, Lion's LaSalles, and Lamson's were trimmed in boughs of holly and there was a general sense of optimism and good cheer. Business was as bright as the holiday lights. Change was coming to Toledo and the world.
One of the big changes that happened that month was the opening of a new television station in the Toledo viewing area. WTOL-TV. It would broadcast on Channel 11 and was owned and operated by one of the most famous men in Toledo at the time, Frazier Reams.
He was well known as the tough county prosecutor who brought down the Licavoli mob in Toledo in the 1930s and would later go into politics, becoming a congressman in the early 1950s. Reams also owned WTOL AM and FM Radio.
Channel 11 signed on the air for the first time on Saturday night, at 7 p.m., Dec. 6, 1958. The inaugural program was live with Ohio governor-elect Michael V. Disalle (D-Toledo), and a host of other local dignitaries, along with owner Frazier Reams. The program featured information on the creation and building of the station, and also featured a special filmed report on Toledo’s native son, comedian Danny Thomas, who talked about his boyhood growing up in the city.
After the one-hour opening program, viewers could settle in for a mix of movies and other feature entertainment. The very first movie offering at 8 p.m. that night was “Trackdown,” a CBS western starring Robert Culp as Ranger Hoby Gilman. It was followed by “The Jackie Gleason Show” and then Phil Silvers, Playhouse, Lineup and at 10:30 that night, that highly acclaimed and iconic show “Person-to-Person” hosted by Edward R Murrow. This was the first time Toledo viewers would get to see the highly popular interview program without having to strain their eyes through the “snow” of a broadcast from Detroit.
The first newscast on WTOL not be broadcast until Monday, Dec. 8, 1958. It featured newsman Oscar Huff at 6 p.m., but at 7 p.m. that night was the debut of WTOL’s first local newscast with Gordon Ward. It was sponsored by the Ohio Fuel Gas Company and was promoted as a special look at the news with an “emphasis on news here at home.”
Gordon Ward stayed with WTOL for many years as a prominent anchor and newsman. With his down-to-Earth and honest personality, he endeared himself to many over the years, and was especially appealing to Connie Harlan, who played Miss Judy on WTOL’s “Romper Room” kids show. In 1962, they would wed on a live TV broadcast on Channel 11. They remain together today and still live in Toledo.
WTOL would also host many other likeable on-air personalities over the years, in news and sports and programming. One of them was Doug Tabner, the young sports director who had been a well-known radio sports announcer before sitting in front of the WTOL camera. Tragically, Doug passed away at a young age in the early 1960s from cancer. He was soon replaced by his brother Orris Tabner, who remained with WTOL until his retirement in 1997.
Other popular newscasters included Don Edwards, a no-nonsense old-school news veteran who had a crisp and confident delivery that was well received by the viewers. Another popular newsman who spent time at WTOL was John Saunders. He had a been a reporter with the Stars and Stripes during World War II and came from a newspaper family background. His father, Alan Saunders, was not only a reporter for many years with the Toledo Blade, but was a fine cartoon strip writer who created the long-standing national strip, “Mary Worth.”
Other notables from the early years at WTOL-TV news include Joe Gillis, Lamont McLaughlin, and Joe Ashton, who did weather and other programs. Another personality from the 1960s was Brooks Morton, better known as Mr. Thistledown with his puppet mascot Englebert.
The list is long of those who have walked through the doors of WTOL-TV, which were first located at the Hillcrest Hotel in Toledo and then for many years at 604 Jackson St. in the old News Bee building where One Government Center now resides.
The move to Summit and Cherry Street took place around 1981.
As years moved forward, WTOL-TV continued to distinguish itself with a rich resume of news documentaries and special programming. As early as the black-and-white world of 1960s film broadcasting, WTOL was producing a regular half-hour feature titled “11 At Large," an around-the-town type of interview and urban exploration program hosted by Joe Gillis.
After the deadly 1965 tornadoes that devastated areas of Toledo and SE Michigan, WTOL produced a special series of reports. In the 1960s, WTOL also did some foreign travel, and one of those travels put them in the middle of an international crisis. WTOL sent a team to Moscow to interview the new ambassador to Russia, Foy Kohler, a Toledo native in October 1962. They arrived just as the Cuban Missile Crisis began to unfold and the WTOL team found themselves caught up in the center of a Cold War standoff.
Over the past 60 years, WTOL-TV has continued to serve the Toledo community, changing owners several times, but always fulfilling a commitment to provide fair and accurate news reporting in the public interest, plus sports, event and entertainment programming for everyone in the viewing area.
