- Fairborn Halloween Festival
October 11th – 13th
Friday 4pm-11pm
Saturday 10am-11pm
Sunday 12pm-6pm - Centerville Washington History Speaker Series
October 16th, 7 pm.
Washington Township RecPlex West
895 Miamisburg Centerville Road
Dayton, 45459 - Behind Urban Legends
October 19th, 12pm
Dayton Metro Library, Downtown Branch
215 E 3rd St,
Dayton, OH 45402 - Behind Urban Legends
October 28th, 6pm
Dayton Metro Library, Northmont Branch
700 W National Rd
Englewood, OH 45322
Spook-Ghetti at Spaghetti Warehouse
Enjoy a delicious Italian meal while listening to Haunted History and encounters of downtown Dayton and the warehouse. After dinner, take a haunted tour of the warehouse with local Paranormal Investigator Paula Dytko. For an extra $30 per person, experience getting to know the spirits of the Warehouse with the VIP 2-hour ghost hunt after Spook-ghetti ends. All levels of ghost investigators are welcome. Ages 16+.
Call Spaghetti Warehouse at (937) 461-3913 to reserve your seat.
Upcoming dates: June 6, July 11, August 1, and Sept 5
Dr. Kemp and the Oldest House in Dayton
We reached out to the Riverside Historical Society, and they forwarded our request to the owner of the Kemp Homestead. The owner then reached out to us, and gave us his contact information, which we forwarded to Dr. Kemp.
We were delighted to receive the following email from Dr. Kemp after his visit:
Thank you for suggesting the Riverside Historical Society for enabling contact with James Owen. My wife Tricia and I met him 1 o’clock June 5th. He was very open, gracious, and proud to show us all through the house for two hours. He said he and his father restored the homestead about 1972. It had been heavily vandalized but because the original had no nails, the wood and stones weren’t bothered. We went up to the attic and space where slaves sheltered and Kemp children slept and could be ignored. Jim is a lawyer and antique collector. The homestead contains a huge collection of furniture, beds, paintings, guns, pots, books, etc. that he loves to recount. There is a powerful home theatre system on the ground floor fireplace west. He gave us two printed gift cards of the homestead as a parting gesture.
We love that we were able to facilitate this!
The “Big Wind” in 1871
The storm, described as less than a tornado and more of a “big wind”, blew through “creating great havoc in property and destroying precious human lives. The storm, which was a furious one, lasted about 30 minutes. It began in the northwest with a sultry atmosphere and a temperature of 96 degrees. About 2 p.m. there were angry growlings and menacing streaks of lightning above the horizon. There were a few drops of rain, a sudden rush of wind and the storm came on furiously. Branches fluttered in the air, shade trees went down in the gutters, signs were flung about like flails, great steeples, by the wind, swung to and fro like the tops of tall pine trees. The thunder was terrific, the lightning vivid, the wind most furious and the rain poured down as though the flood-gates of heaven had opened for a deluge.”
Continue reading
Even More Street and Bridge Honorary Designations
- Walter J. Hickman Sr. Avenue (Brooklyn Avenue) – Hickman was a respected neighborhood leader in the Westwood area, where Brooklyn Avenue is located.
- Pastor S. N. Winston Sr. Way (Siebenthaler Road) – Winston was a pastor at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church for 46 years.
- Lloyd Lewis Jr. Way (Ludlow Street) – Lewis was a city of Dayton Assistant City Manager, City Commissioner, State Representative, an executive at Rike’s, and VP at DP&L.
- Willis “Bing” Davis Way (Diamond Avenue) – Davis is a renowned artist who grew up on Diamond Avenue.
- Peace Bridge (Third Street bridge) – Connects two sides of the Great Miami River
- Sergeant Edward Brooks Way (Elmhurst Drive) – Brooks was killed at age 25 by an IED in Iraq, on August 29, 2007.
- Ted Mills Way (Sears Street) – Mills had a baseball school location on Sears Street.
Street and Bridge Honorary Designations
This list is thanks to the book Hidden History by Tony Kroeger, with a small amount of Googling on our part.
- Page E. Gray Jr. Way (Liscum Drive) – Gray was the first African American to hold a position other than custodian at NCR. He was a parts inspector and later became an assistant design engineer during the 1960s.
- Mick Montgomery Way (Patterson Boulevard) – Montgomery owned Canal Street Tavern.
- Betsy B. Whitney Way (Wilkinson Street) – Whitney was a philanthropist and volunteered for many causes, including the YWCA, which is located on Wilkinson.
- Paul Deneau Way (Fourth Street) – Deneau was an architect of several Dayton buildings, such as the Grant-Deneau Tower at 40 W. Fourth Street and the Lakewoods Tower at 980 Wilmington Avenue.
- Ambassador Richard Holbrooke Memorial Bridge (Salem Avenue bridge) – Holbrooke was an American diplomat and a leader in the development of the Dayton Accords in 1995, which helped bring an end to the war in Bosnia.
- Erma Bombeck Way (Brown and Warren Streets) – Bombeck was a writer whose humorous column and books were widely read. Bombeck grew up in Dayton and is buried at Woodland Cemetery.
- Mike Schmidt Parkway (Riverside Drive) – Schmidt played in Major League Baseball for eighteen seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was three-time MVP and 12-time All-Star. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995.
Lewis Kemp and the Oldest House in Dayton
8.4.2019 – One Year Later
- Megan Betts, age 22
- Nicholas Cumer, age 25
- Thomas “Teejay” McNichols, age 25
- Lois “Lola” Oglesby, age 27
- Logan Turner, age 30
- Beatrice “Nicole” Warren-Curtis, age 36
- Saheed Saleh, age 38
- Monica Brickhouse, age 39
- Derrick Fudge, age 57
The Isaac Pollack House
In 1854, two Jewish immigrants named Isaac Pollack and Solomon Rauh began a business partnership dealing whiskey and wine in Dayton from a warehouse on West Third Street.
Eight years later in 1862, Pollack served as a corporal in the civilian Squirrel Hunters during the Civil War and was regarded as a hero after the Squirrel Hunters successfully defended Cincinnati from an attack by the Confederate army. At the end of the war, Pollack and his friend Rauh started to build two identical homes on West Third Street.
Source: Dayton International Peace Museum Website
Dayton Unknown 