Celebrating Toledo’s University

150 Years of the University and the City

A lecture celebrating 150 years of the University of Toledo.

As part of its 150th anniversary celebration the University of Toledo Sesquicentennial Committee presents “Celebrating Toledo’s University: 150 Years of the University and the City,” a lecture, by Barbara Floyd, former university archivist and author of “An Institution for the Promoting of Knowledge: The University of Toledo at 150.” The lecture will focus on how the city and its residents contributed to making the university a success, and how the university contributed to the development of the city.

For 83 of its 150-year history, the University of Toledo was a municipal institution, supported by the taxpayers of the city of Toledo. The citizens of the city saved the university at many dark times when it was on the brink of closing, including the approval of a bond levy in 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression that allowed the university to build a magnificent new permanent campus on Bancroft Street. The support of the city set the course for the university to grow beyond anyone’s expectations. The university remained the city’s university until 1967 when it joined the state’s higher education system.