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Times, Crimes and the Tenderloin in Pre-Prohibition Toledo is a collection of stories that paint a vivid picture of the Tenderloin era in Toledo during the two decades before the passage of the 18th and 19th Amendments. As the country moved out of the rigid Victorian period and entered an era of airplanes, automobiles, and rapidly changing technology, new-found social freedoms began to spin out of control.
Times, Crimes and the Tenderloin in Pre-Prohibition Toledo follows the career of Toledo Captain of Detectives Lewis B. Tracy, a tough but compassionate cop who was involved in most of the city's major crime investigations throughout his career. In 1915, he was placed in charge of Toledo's Red-Light District, a seedy area south of the city, also known as the Tenderloin or Vice Zone, filled with brothels, gambling joints, saloons, and dance halls. The area was populated by a dangerous array of streetwalkers, prostitutes, pickpockets, dope fiends, thieves and hustlers-and Tracy knew them all.
Over time, Detective Tracy became known for his compassionate treatment of the "unfortunates", many of whom developed a deep respect for the kind-hearted officer they came to know as "Papa", "Father", or "Cap". In 1918, as WWI was raging, Tracy was placed in charge of the Slackers Bureau, rounding up draft dodgers, German sympathizers, disloyalists and citizens who refused to buy war bonds. It was in this role that he became known as "Loyalty Lou" for his stern patriotic lectures to arrestees.
Over the span of his twenty-three-year career with the Toledo Police Department Detective Tracy was shot, robbed, bitten, and assaulted, but somehow, he always managed to stay strong and "get his man". Today, the few remaining buildings of the Tenderloin have been reclaimed as shops, restaurants, and condos, leaving little evidence of their former uses.
But the stories live on.
