May 09--LIMA -- The Lima Police Department is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. To answer a few questions about its history, I turned to the history written by Joe Bowsher, "Lima, Ohio, Police Department: A Century of Service." Bowsher started at the Lima Police Department in 1966 and retired in 1992.
The history is vast, but here are a few details:
-- The first station was in 1831 in the 100 block of South Main Street. It was the headquarters for city and county offices in addition to the town marshal. Lima's law enforcement was officially organized with the naming of Amos Clutter as town marshal in 1842. They used their own guns.
-- The Lima Police Department began with seven officers in 1887. Lima had expanded with the oil boom, and a more formal law enforcement presence was needed. Officers were paid $60 a month for working every day in the early 1900s, and at that time they were issued a gun, a badge, a whistle, a flashlight and a set of keys.
-- The first African-American officer was William A. Jackson, a Detroit native who started in 1891. He served four years, retiring in 1895, but was reappointed in 1898. There were many other African-Americans who served continuing from that era.
-- A new station was built to house the Police and Fire departments at East High Street and North Central Avenue in 1907. It was built at a cost of $135,000. There were about 18 police officers at the time, and there were nine cells in the jail. The vacated space later became the Leader Store.
-- The department first bought a vehicle -- a paddy wagon -- in 1915. Motorcycles came onto the force five years before that for traffic control, and Model Ts and Model As were later added. In the 1930s, automobiles were ordered with bulletproof glass and gunports. Before the department had vehicles, officers used street cars.
-- In 1923, Sgt. William Keller organized the identification bureau. He organized files with fingerprints and mug shots of everyone incarcerated in the city jail. Before fingerprints, officers used the Bertillon system, using measurements of a person's head and body to identify him.
-- The Fraternal Order of Police No. 21 was chartered in 1935. The meetings were held in various members' garages until grocers Howard and Ray Pangle provided land at 750 W. Robb Ave. and a lodge was built in 1966.
-- The first juvenile officer was Patrolman Earl Cox, who took the post in 1948.
-- Equipment firsts include the Speedmeter in 1955, a speed-detecting system using air hoses laid across a roadway. The Alcometer was used at this time also, but its results weren't the best and officers instead relied on blood tests done at the hospitals. In 1968, officers were given two-way portable radios so they could communicate with the station, and radios were installed in cruisers in 1970. The Breathalyzer and the polygraph came into use in the early 1970s.
-- A new station was finished in the 100 block of East Market Street in 1969, replacing the building at 117 E. High St., which had served as headquarters for some 60 years before that. The Lima House Hotel and Sarno's Restaurant and Lounge had to be purchased and razed so the new station could go in.
-- Major changes came with the 1970s. New in this decade were the vice squad, meter maids, bomb squad, SWAT team, Safety City, radar guns, and the first female officer. Lima Technical College opened during this era also and offered an associate degree in law enforcement, allowing officers to be on the force and work toward their degree at the same time. (Officers were first required by the state to have structured training in the mid-1960s.)
-- The 1980s saw more improvements. Wire barriers were first used in cars between front and back seats. A plan for 911 was started in 1986, and it became operational in 1989. A computer system was installed just two years before that.
See the special section in June to learn more about the chiefs through the department's history, big cases they were involved in, officers killed in the line of duty, changes in weaponry, and more.
Copyright 2012 - The Lima News, Ohio
