Toledo was laid down on 13 September 1943 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, launched on 6 May 1945, sponsored by Mrs Edward J. Moan, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 27 October 1946, Captain August J. Detzer, Jr., in command.

After completing shakedown training out of Guantanamo Bay, she visited St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; Kingston, Jamaica; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, before returning north to Philadelphia and a three-week post-shakedown availability.

Toledo steamed through the Mediterranean, transited the Suez Canal, crossed the Indian Ocean, and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan, on 15 June.

Later that spring, the cruiser made a goodwill cruise to the Indian Ocean during which she stopped at Karachi, Pakistan; Singapore, Malaya; Trincomalee, Ceylon; and Bombay, India.

After her return to the northwestern Pacific in early summer, Toledo operated out of Tsingtao, China, during the evacuation of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese forces to Taiwan.

On 16 September, the warship departed the China coast and headed for Bremerton, Washington, entering the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 5 October for her first major overhaul.

The cruiser's refurbishing was completed on 18 February 1949; and she headed back to Long Beach for six months of training along the coasts of California, Mexico, and the Isthmus of Panama.

Ten days later, Toledo pointed her bow west once more and embarked upon her fourth cruise to the Orient and her first tour of combat duty.

Toledo made a brief stop at Pearl Harbor en route and continued on to Sasebo, where Rear Admiral John M. Higgins, Commander, Cruiser Division 5, broke his flag in her on 18 July 1950.

On 4 August, the task element joined Air Force fighters in a combined air-sea strike on an enemy-held village near Yongdok.

Toledo then moved some 70 miles north to the area around Samchok where she cruised along a 25-mile stretch of coastline and shelled a number of targets.

During that interdiction run, she demolished a bridge, chewed up highway intersections, and generally wreaked havoc on communist supply lines.

Therefore, Toledo and her previous consorts – augmented by Gurke (DD-783), De Haven (DD-727), and Royal Navy light cruisers, Jamaica (44) and Kenya (14) – entered the harbor to silence the island's guns on 13 September.

The destroyers led the way through the mine-infested channel and moved in close to draw enemy fire while the cruisers stood off waiting for the North Koreans to betray their positions.

However, after the 18th, the marines had advanced beyond the range of her 8-inch guns; and Toledo shifted to support troops mopping up bypassed pockets of enemy resistance.

The cruiser returned to the Korean coast at Chaho Han on 13 October, conducted shore bombardments in preparation for the amphibious operation at Wonsan, and reentered Sasebo the following day.

For the next month, she cruised off the coast near Inchon where she provided gunfire support for the front-line troops of the US I Corps, guarding the Han River line during the communist spring offensive of 1951.

On 24 September, she was called upon to provide continuous illumination fire and to silence an enemy 120-millimeter howitzer while United Nations forces recaptured positions recently lost to the communists.

She made an overnight port call at Sasebo on the 29th and 30th, visited the Bonin Islands from 2 through 4 October, and stopped at Yokosuka on the 5th and 6th, before taking up station on the bombline once more on the 8th.

In mid-January 1953, she visited Hong Kong for rest and relaxation before resuming patrols off Wonsan and Songjin and fire support duties for the American X and ROK I Corps.

After almost five months of normal operations along the western coast of the United States, the cruiser cleared Long Beach on 14 September.

For the most part, her deployment consisted of training operations, goodwill calls at a number of ports, and general patrol and show-the-flag duties.

She conducted operations along the west coast until 16 June when she began a four-month overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton.

She reached Sydney on 30 April and remained there for five days as a guest of the Australian government during the 15th anniversary celebration of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

On 1 January 1974, her name was struck from the Navy List, and she was sold to the National Metal and Steel Corporation, Terminal Island, California, on 30 October 1974 for $983,461.29.