On the twenty-third of March 1909, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, for the purpose of encouraging proficiency in the art of sailing upon the Great Lakes by means of popular contests in yachting, gifted to the Toledo Yacht Club a beautiful silver cup known as the “President’s Cup”. The most famous winner of the President’s Cup was “Old Sam”. Old Sam had won over one hundred sailing events before she was retired and its transom displayed in a prominent place at the Toledo Yacht Club as a memento to this famous sailing yacht.

Commodore Merrill B. Mills of Detroit inaugurated the annual Mills Trophy Race in 1907 and donated to Toledo Yacht Club a sterling silver punch bowl, very ornate in design, for the purpose of encouraging proficiency in the art of navigation upon the Great Lakes by means of a popular contest in yachting. This race was held annually until the year 1917 at which time it was discontinued, both because of an unfortunate accident which cost the life of a popular yachtsman and the depressing influence of World War I. The Mills Race was re-established by the Toledo Yacht Club in conjunction with the Storm Try Sail Club. In 1995, the seventy second running of the race, 161 yachts competed for thirty-eight trophies. The yacht race has become one of the most popular sailing events on the Great Lakes yacht-racing schedule.

In 1965, Toledo Yacht Club organized a centennial celebration with a parade of boats and the crowning of a centennial queen. As the oldest club in the area and the eleventh oldest yacht club in the United States, the Toledo Yacht Club became host to the Centennial celebration.

The historic Toledo Yacht Club, Bay View Park, Toledo, has been entered in the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.