Tag Archives: Dayton history

Sara’s Appearance on WYSO Book Nook

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Sara was interviewed on WYSO’s Book Nook about her latest book, Murder in Victorian Dayton: The Tragic Story of Bessie Little!
To read the article about her book and interview: Dayton Daily News article.

Upcoming Spring and Summer Events

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  • Children’s Free Book Fair
    29 West First Street, Dayton
    May 17th-18th
  • Food Truck Rally
    Thomas Cloud Park
    May 20th at 4 pm
  • Summer Flea Market
    Charles Lathrem Senior Center
    June 7th
  • Troy Strawberry Festival
    405 Public Square, Troy Ohio
    June 7th-8th
  • Yellow Springs Street Fair
    101 Dayton Street
    June 14th
  • Greene County Strawberry Fest
    120 Fairground Rd, Xenia
    June 21st-22nd
  • Hunger Days Food Truck Rally
    2910 Trebein Road (Hobson Freedom Park), Fairborn
    July 24th at 4pm
  • Art on the Commons
    695 Lincoln Park Blvd, Kettering
    August 10th
  • Greater Dayton Lebanese Festival
    50 Nutt Road, Dayton
    August 22nd-24th

Dayton Codebreakers – Sir Dermot Turing’s Visit

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Did you know Dayton played a big part in World War II? Local electric engineer and inventor Joseph Desch was the Research Director of the Navy’s program to design and build a bombe – a machine to read coded communications from Germany (coded by the Enigma).

Desch and his team worked in one of NCR’s buildings decoding the messages using the American Bombe Machine and would then send the messages to Washington D.C. as intelligence. While working with the American Bombe Machine, Alan Turing – known for cracking Germany’s Enigma code – visited Joseph Desch in Oakwood and at the NCR building.

Retired RAF Captain Andrew Lloyd, along with the organization he founded, Oakwood Unsung Heroes, have been working to showcase this piece of history by having a City of Oakwood proclamation for the month of May to be Codebreaker Month, and they have an exhibit on display at Wright Memorial Public Library in collaboration with the National Cryptologic Museum.

On May 8th, the nephew of Alan Turing, Sir Dermot Turing, will be speaking at the Dayton International Peace Museum and at Carillon Park. For both events, tickets are free, but limited.

  • May 8th at 11am @ Dayton International Peace Museum
  • May 8th at 7:30pm @ Carillon Park

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic:

Dayton Area Book Crawl

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Celebrate National Independent Bookstore day with local bookstores! All stores listed will be open from 10am-6pm on April 26th for the event.Stores:

  • Jay and Mary’s Book Center
    1201 Experiment Farm Road
    Troy, OH 45373
  • Browse Awhile Books
    118 East Main Street
    Tipp City, OH 45371
  • Around About Books
    8 West Main Street
    Troy, Ohio 45373
  • New and Olde Pages
    856 Union Boulevard
    Englewood, OH 45322
  • The Cozy Booknook
    4720 South Dixie Avenue
    Moraine, OH 45439
  • Rabbit Hole Books
    29 West First Street
    Dayton, OH 45402
  • Star City Booksellers
    55 South Main Street
    Miamisburg, OH 45342

Start your journey at any location and pick up a passport. Get the passport stamped at each location and be entered to win prizes! Make sure to stop in at New & Olde Pages for author speed dating from 1 to 3 pm. Sit for 3 minutes with each author and let them pitch their book or series to you.

Katt Williams to be Honored in Cincinnati

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Cincinnati-born and Dayton-raised Micah “Katt” Williams will be honored with a street named after him in Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood. At 5:30 Saturday, the intersection of Reading Road and Maple Avenue will be renamed Katt Williams Way. At 8 pm, he will take the stage at Heritage Bank Center as part of his “Heaven on Earth” tour.

Williams was born in Cincinnati in 1971 and moved to Dayton with his Jehovah’s Witness parents. During that time, he learned multiple languages, including Creole and French, and he lived in Haiti for 18 months as part of religious missions. Williams emancipated himself from his parents at 13, then moved to Florida and supported himself as a street vendor.

Williams has found success through his stand-up comedy, acting, and music career. Although he has faced many legal issues, he has continued with his career and received an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance on the show Atlanta. His “Heaven on Earth” comedy tour has dates across the US through November.

Another Wright Brother Bench has been Found!

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Back in November, we posted about Bethany’s search for the nine Wright Brothers Benches around town, and the fact that two are listed in incorrect places on the Ohio Outdoor Sculpture Inventory. As a result of our post here and on Facebook, a reader (thanks, Heather!!) reached out and informed us of the location of one of the missing benches on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in front of the historical Hap Arnold House. Bethany ventured out to explore, and confirmed that it is there! If you have any idea where the last missing bench is located, please let us know!

Huffman Prairie & Simms Station

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Did you know that if you go to Huffman Prairie to the location of the trolley stop station (Simms Station) and look at the sign, you can see a tree in the picture from over 100 years ago in both the picture, and right in front of you?

Local Author C. L. Pauwel

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C. L. Pauwels is an author, teacher, editor, assistant director of a writer’s workshop, literary citizen, mother, grandmother, and wife. Her interests outside writing include healthcare, equal rights and climate change and her involvement with local government. Her writing is diverse as well, ranging from essays to short stories and novels.

Her novel, Forty & Out, takes place in Toledo where a serial killer has been targeting women on their 40th birthday. The book follows the newly assigned homicide detective as she tries to prevent the body count from increasing. Her desire to solve the case heightens as the killer targets the detective’s sister.

Some of CL Pauwels other works include:

  • Unwelcome Ties
  • Burned Bridges
  • “One Sadistic Muse.” Mock Turtle ‘zine. (Dayton, OH). Fall 2013. (27).
  • “Popcorn Memories.” Flights. Dayton, OH: Sinclair Community College, Fall 2015.
  • “When I’m 64.” Hags on Fire, Winter Solstice 2022

Quick Dayton Stories

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Sometimes while doing research for other stories (or for books), we come across interesting stories that aren’t long enough for a blog post but are still interesting! Here are a few:

    • December 1946 – Police rushed to the scene after a woman reporting a freshly dug grave near her home. The grave was adorned with a large floral display. Deputy Sheriff Ben Brown dug for several minutes before finding a large box tied with a fancy ribbon. The scene was silent as the Deputy Sheriff lifted the box from the ground and untied the ribbon to see a large silk handkerchief inside. In it, he found a dead canary.
    • March 1802 (reported December 1802) – While Jonathan Dayton attended a session of Congress in Washington DC, he had an experience of “Spontaneous Combustion”. While undressing himself at bedtime, Dayton removed a pair of silk stockings he wore over a pair of woolen stockings. He dropped the silk stockings onto a woolen carpet near the side of the bed. One of his garters fell down with the silk stockings. The white woolen stockings were tossed farther away, near the foot of the bed. Dayton noticed a bit of sparking when he separated the silk stockings from the wool ones, which he gave no mind, since he had seen that before. He slept through the night as normal. In the morning a servant entered in the morning to kindle the fire, waking Dayton. Dayton then noticed his silk stockings were a brown color and one of his leather slippers was burnt. The garter that fell next to the silk stocking was charred but intact. Upon closer examination, the leather slipper and the garter only were burnt in the parts that had been in contact with the silk stockings. Both Dayton and the servant attending him noted there were no candles burning in the room and the fireplace was at least 9 feet away and burning low. Based on the evidence, they concluded it was spontaneous combustion.
    • September 1997 – A plain pine box with the skeletal remains of at least two early Daytonians, buried in St Henry Cemetery in the late 1800s, was laid to rest during a service and burial at Calvary Cemetery. Workers found the bones while laying a sewer line for the Miami Valley Hospital’s new Emergency and Surgery Complex. Cemetery Superintendent Rick Meade provided green carpeting and a red tent, hospital carpenters made the pine box, and Miami Valley sent a pot of mums for the service. The land had been the site of St Henry’s Catholic Cemetery. The city of Dayton had grown around St Henry’s, leaving it with no room to expand. The cemetery hit hard times, unable to keep up with maintenance. That’s when the trustees decided to sell the cemetery and move the bodies to Calvary. Roughly 6,000 bodies were moved from St Henry to Calvary, and 4,013 were unclaimed. The unclaimed were buried in a mass grave at Calvary Cemetery where the Memorial Chapel stands. The chapel was built from funds derived from the sale of St Henry and dedicated to the unclaimed souls. The Memorial Chapel was dedicated on All Souls Day, November 2, 1902. In the service provided for the reinterred, Rev. Richard Knuge, chaplain at Miami Valley Hospital, read “We commend these remains to the Lord, that the Lord may embrace them in peace and raise up their bodies on the last day”, from the Roman Ritual, Order of Christian Funerals. “We are dust and into dust we shall return. Blessed is the Lord.”