Here’s some more fun facts about Dayton we’ve learned during our research:
- The Private Fair statue on Main Street just south of Monument Avenue in downtown was almost a statue of the Goddess of Liberty, but ex-Civil War soldiers protested, and requested the goddess instead be a statue of a soldier. Private George Washington Fair of Dayton was the model for the statue, which was erected in 1884 – the original location at the intersection of Main and Monument.
- The statue of President McKinley in Cooper Park (behind the Dayton Library on Third Street and St. Clair) was built from funds raised and donated by local schoolchildren.
- In 1905, Earl H. Kiser, professional automobile racer, was involved in an accident that caused him to lose his leg. Soon after, Woodland Cemetery received a box labeled, “Handle With Care” and a special request for Kiser’s leg to be put aside until a later date when it would reunited with its owner upon death. Earl and his leg were reunited shortly after his death in 1936, thirty one years later.
- The McCoys, who wrote Ohio’s State song, Hang on Sloopy, requently played in Dayton, as the group was from Union City, Indiana.
- Murphy’s Law – Although the expression, “if anything could go wrong, it will,” had been used for years before, it is credited to Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr., a development engineer at the Wright Field Aircraft Laboratory. After numerous experiments resulted in failures, Murphy realized that his lab assistant had been making numerous mistakes. Frustrated, he remarked that if there was a wrong way to do it, the technician would. That remark was paraphrased at a news conference later, and soon became known as Murphy’s Law.
- The Deeds Carillon at Carillon Park in Dayton was donated by Edith Walton Deeds, wife of Colonel Deeds. She had the idea after visiting Belgium and hearing chimes in a belfry. The tower was built in 1942, and each of the bells was inscribed with the name of a Deeds family member.
Dayton Unknown 