For 100 years, a 1,600-foot limestone wall has adorned the south length of Toledo Memorial Park and has been the first sight visitors recognized as the gateway to Sylvania.
Limestone is a useful building material. It is literally the foundation of Sylvania—used in roads, railroads, barn foundations, homes, commercial buildings, churches, and, of course, beautiful cemetery walls.
The story of the locally quarried limestone, the growth of Sylvania, and the development of Toledo Memorial Park are one in the same — yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The Toledo Memorial Park Limestone Wall Yesterday
As Sylvania was growing, drainage, due to the swampy land in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, became a major problem for the farms and quarries that popped up in the area in the early 1900s. With technological advancements at the time, quarries were digging deeper and farmers were planting and harvesting more land. The only way to achieve both was to move more water out to the lake.
Early in 1920, the State of Michigan assessed values and collected taxes for the Monroe County Drainage Project. The project included the extension and deepening of the North Branch of Ten Mile Creek, which forms the north and west boundary of Toledo Memorial Park.
This important project — and the history of Toledo Memorial Park become forever intertwined in 1922.
Local oral history tells the story this way: “Malcolm Lukowski, who owned a 20 acre-farm on Wadsworth Road, one mile due north of Toledo Memorial Park was hired to perform the initial excavation and roadwork. Malcolm also worked for the recently founded Toledo Memorial Park. Each day, Malcolm and his team of horses hauled loads of limestone to the stone masons constructing the limestone wall at Toledo Memorial Park. Each night when he went home, he dropped off his empty cart to be reloaded with freshly blasted bedrock from the creek.
This daily process continued until the wall was completed two years later.
It was stated in the 1923 labor union yearbook that “The stone wall is considered the most attractive masonry in Toledo.”
Limestone pillars have stood sentinel to the entrance to the cemetery as well. The pillars and gates remain fully functional, and just as they have for 100 years, open and close 365 days per year, to offer security to the park.
The Toledo Memorial Park Limestone Wall Today and Tomorrow
Due to a street widening project on Monroe Street, the wall must be moved. The City of Sylvania is using imminent domain to claim the land where the wall stands.
Toledo Memorial Park is still negotiating with the City of Sylvania and Toledo Edison to help pay for the costs to save the wall. We want to dismantle the wall and reconstruct it just as it is a few feet from where it stands today. This is a small effort to maintain the elegant piece of history that many Sylvania’s consider the gateway to our city.
We have begun this process even as we continue to negotiate with the City in good faith.
We believe that our history can be maintained while paving the way to our future. The past—just like the limestone—is the foundation for all that we become.
We must respect history, learn from it, and cherish it as we move forward.
If we have our way, the limestone wall will welcome another century of visitors to the City of Sylvania.