Halloween pranks once vexed Ohio towns

• Young kids pulled flower beds, tipped over outhouses and marked windows with soap.
• Older teens threw rocks at houses, stole wagons (and eventually cars), destroyed crops and even set whole barns ablaze.

Threat level: Some of these "pranks" went even further overboard, as in 1946 when vandals ransacked a local fire department and drained a fire truck's battery in Green Camp, about 30 miles north of Columbus.

• Emergency crews couldn't respond when a nearby farm caught on fire two days later.
• In 1950, four Athens County teens were injured when they wired an outhouse with dynamite caps and it exploded.

🌽 Nice try: Seven teens thought they got away with pushing over 70 shocks of corn from a Marion County farm in 1952.

• That is, until a deputy sheriff found a prankster's wallet in the field.

😡 Getting revenge: One fed-up Cleveland native finally had enough of the pranks.

• When two kids in 1933 tried to soap his windows, he sprayed them with grease — and was arrested for assault and battery.
• "If folks don't like grease in their children's hair," he was quoted as saying, "they'd better keep them off my property."