Jeff

I use pop & soda interchangebaly..more soda I think, than pop.... 85% General American English 10% Upper Midwestern 5% Yankee 0% Dixie 0% Midwestern ....guess that Chicago backround is showing with the 10% upper midwestern...

Hard to find the superlatives to describe how outstanding these pix are. What's more, ColDayMan has captured the real spirit of the place....the late afternoon pix of downtown buildings & streets....you are really "there" with those pix....

VMD for short. Exploring the region east of Dayton... most of the pix will be from Highland and Fayette Counties "Virginia settlers gave this area a strong Southern flavor, down to the metes and bounds survey technique." "Although Virginia gave up most of its claim to western lands before passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the state had kept an area of land in the Northwest Territory called the Virginia Military District. The territory was bordered by the Ohio River to the South, the Little Miami River to the west, and the Scioto River on the east and north. The state used these lands as payment to Virginia's Revolutionary War veterans. The first settlement in the Virginia Military District was Massie's Station, but the community of Chillicothe was also organized quickly. Many Virginians settled in the region, in some cases having to give up slaves in order to move to Ohio. The Northwest Ordinance did not allow slavery in the territory. George Washington was eligible for land in the district but never applied for a land patent. Virginia eventually gave back to the United States government any lands that had not been claimed by veterans. The government then gave the land to the state of Ohio. In 1872, the Ohio legislature used this land to create an endowment for The Ohio State University." Xenia...Greene County Courthouse Xenia Grit Washington Court House (or Washington CH) More Washington CH "Washington Court House is the county seat of Fayette County, Ohio. Benjamin Temple established the town in 1810. Residents named the community in honor of former President of the United States George Washington. Washington Court House has served as the county seat since the founding of Fayette County in 1810.... ..Washington Court House continued to grow during the twentieth century. With a population of 13,524 people, the village was the county’s largest community in 2000. The town still serves as a destination point for farmers and their families to purchase needed supplies and to sell their crops. VMD landscape. The farms here seem larger than the areas west & south of Dayton..maybe.not that many woodlots, and fewer small towns or villiages....and the roads and land is in not in the checkboard.grid pattern Greenfield... Greenfield scenes.... Leesburg & Samantha More landscape Hillsboro, seat of Highland County..heart of the VMD.... Hillsboro is the county seat of Highland County, Ohio. Founded in 1807, Hillsboro was constructed to be the county seat. Before this community’s establishment, New Market served as the Highland County seat of government. Hillsboro grew relatively quickly, having 868 inhabitants in 1840. By 1846, the community contained three churches, two newspaper offices, fourteen stores, and an academy for men and another school for women. The town continued to grow over the next four decades....During the twentieth century, Hillsboro continued to serve as Highland County’s urban center. Farmers continued to rely upon Hillsboro’s businesses to meet their needs. In 2000, Hillsboro had a population of 6,368 people, making it the largest town in Highland County. " oldest courthouse in Ohio in cont. operation..from the 1830s... antebellum commercial block. Bell's opera house street scenes..1830s & 1840s....some of this is on the National Register.... Low sun over the plains of Ohio... New Vienna, a railroad town the waning New Years Day under a pale sky....

St John sounds like it was a "national parish". The Catholic church in the US had established these for the various ethnic groups. In my old neighborhood in Chicago, St Genevieve, or "St Gen's" was the regular parish, but St Stanislaus B&M was the "national' parish for the Poles, and St John Bosco for the Italians. There was even a national parish for Belgians in Chicago, in the Logan Square area. Anyway, thanks for that artilce as I was always curious about that Italian connection in Columbus due to the Italian Villiage place name.

Very good, Ink....I, too, am quite taken by these old industrial structures. A quick look at the OPLIN online Sanborn Map collections shows the Beckett Mill, and that it had a water supply for its machinery from an adjacent canal, that had a railroad trestle built over it! The millrace went under the plant via a tunnel, according to the maps. I'll bet these other old factories show up too on the Sanborns. A great tour. Some really impressive old things there, really high quality 19th and early 20th century industrial construction.

St Louis had the Olympics back when it wasnt the big deal it is today. I think for the midwest Chicago would probably work for a venue as they have the lodging and infrastructure to do it...and Lake Michigan for the sailing competition.

It seems he is offering an a solution. The Officemax execs lived in Chicago and moved the coporate HQ to where they lived. So the solution would be to relocate the corporate execs...buy them nice big mansions and provide other perks .....make 'em an offer they cant refure.

Welcome to Dayton...where there is a 'Best County Fair" on the ballot. I'm suprised they didn't have "Best Corn Maze".

Best Festival- Oktoberfest -I like the Greek Fest and Dayton Black Cultural Festival myself... You have to pay to get into the Oktoberfest! Cityfolk was the best I've seen this summer. And what could karoke at Therapy Cafe possibly be like...sing along with Sigur Ros? @@@ this list was pretty predictable. The Winds, Elsas, etc etc etc. Yellow Springs is close enough to be sort of a playground for Dayton hipsters and weekend hippies, so its always in the running for these best-of lists. I would've voted for Rev Cool on WYSO. I've never heard of Boomer. This should have been The Century.

I'm not sure what street that Hansel & Gretl cottage is on...when I was taking pix in the area, in that case, I was in the car, taking pix out the window. I do know It is on a east-west street off of Shroyer, east of Shroyer, north of Dorothy Lane..Peach Orchard, Broad Blvd, one of those streets.... David's Church is actually, nowadays, affiliated with the United Church of Christ..the old Congregational Church. It is the cemetary, not the church, that is non-denominational...

Wow...thats all i can say. $142M mimimum. I hope he doesn't mean they are dead!

By the way, I was quoted in the life section of the Dayton Daily News yesterday, in Sharon Short's editorial column. I tried to find the link on-line for it but couldn't. I clipped it out and scanned it in. If any of you can find it, please post it here. Yesterday was a good day - saw my name in print being quoted then I got a call for a freelance writing gig. Yes, I saw that! I was wondering if that was you mentioned as it sounded like what you've said here. congratuations on that freelance gig, too! Carvers was pretty good when I went, but that was years ago when it first opened. @@@@ Weatherwise, I hope this cold weather isn't too much a shock. Be carefull with the icy roads when we have what we had last Saturday night...that was a pretty messy situation with the sleet & freezing rain.

I read somewhere that Dorothy Lane was named after John Pattersons daughter. Originally, it was only called that west of Far Hills (perhaps as a lane or park road in Hills & Dales Park).

Audidave, thanx for the tip on the Belmont beer store. I knew it was the local source for microbrew things, but didnt know they had a big beer selection. I stopped there today and it does, indeed, have an outstanding beer selection, both local and domestic. Good recommendations. I heard Scottie Bratcher at the blues fest at Dave Hall Plaza and he is quite good. Trolley Stop is perhaps my favorite Oregon place as it has a cozy atmosphere and the music is usually good. They have a good little open mike night, too. The coffee shop you mentioned is pit stop for me when in the city...usually stop there after browsing at Gem City Records. New Orleans Lady... No,not bad at all, and thanks for that on the Wescott House. I didnt know it was open now. BTW, what wast the great steak place you found?

They need a campaign like this for Dayton, as there is a lot of negativity about Dayton among the locals (tho I think some of this is generational)

...back when Kettering was known as Van Buren Township. Not too much of the old rural 19th Century Van Buren Township remains. A few farmhouses. At least one church. The rural villiage of Beaverton is mostly overwhelmend by the widening of Wilmington Pike, though a few old houses remain. Possibly an old farmhouse on Stroop... And Polen Farm on Bigger Road...originally built around the time of the Civil War by the Bigger family, it was bough by a buisness associate of Charles Kettering, expanded, and turned into a country estate/hobby farm....an example of the 1920s--30s "estate era", where working farms in Van Buren Twp and Washington Twp where turned into estates/hobby farms. Now its owned by Kettering and can be rented for things like weddings. And Davids Church and cemetary ("for all faiths", as it says on the sign) ....not named for the biblical David, but an early minister....David Winters, a Reformed Church minister....(his brother, Valentine, founded the Winters bank, and the comedian Jonathan Winters is a distant relative) (from The Land Between the Miamis, by Virginia and Bruce Ronald[/u] ...in 1833 he organized the First Reformed Church on Ludlow Street, where he preached in German and English on alternating Sundays. Meanwhile he continued his fathers practice of serving outlying communities, among them the "Creager Neighborhood" on the Lebanon Pike, where a group of farmers appealed to him to found an English-only church. An Evangelical Lutheran congregation in the neighborhood also lacked a church and the two denominations joined togther...they erected a two story log church in 1830 naming it in David's Church in Winters' honor. Davind Cemetary was begun at the same time. David's Church and the cemetery where seperated in 1890. The cemetery has always been open to all faiths. ...this church and cemetary is a local landmark in Kettering. The first suburban developement in Van Buren Township was Oakwood, which was a real estate speculation associated with a horsecar line extending south from Dayton. Platted in 1871 not much happened in Oakwood for the duration of the 19th Century....like a lot of Ketterings early suburban developement it was a "plat too far". Oakwood didnt really take off until the arrival of the electric streetcar and the electrification of the Oakwood Street Railway comibined with the growth of National Cash Register in the very late 19th century, which led to a boom in Oakwood. The relocation of the country club also helped make the place fashionable with the local buisness elite, or some of them. On the the north and east side of Van Buren township, the Dayton-Xenia interurban line built through the area. The D-X also operated a local streetcar service in Dayton. The streetcar service had an end-of-line loop for this service off of Waterveliet. The D-X led to a real estate boom and the developement of what became the Belmont neighborhood in Dayton. The D-X built or aquired a branch line down Wilmington Pike to Bellbrook, and the Cincinnati, Lebanon, and Dayton "steam road" also provided passenger service through the area. This new acessibiltiy led to a small subdivision boom along Wilimington Pike, with the developement of the "Oakwood Extension"(but quite distant from Oakwood proper), Pasadena, and Oakdale. By the end of WWI, on the eve of the Roaring 20s, the southward trend was evident. By this time the D-X had abandonded its branch down Wilmington, but the Oakwood Street Railroad had extended down Far Hills deeper into Oakwood, which became, along with Belmont, the hot new suburban areas of the 1920s. Interesitng enough it was still possible to commute from by conventional railroad via the station at Pasadena. At the start of the Great Depression the template for suburban growth south was set...large areas had been platted during the 1920s, but much had not been built upon yet. Also during the 1920s bus service became availble through the area via the "Dayton Suburban Bus Company' and also via long distance bus service to Bellbrook and and Lebanon. However, i think by this time the automobile became the preferred choice of travel...thus this area became the first auto suburbs... Van Buren Township experienced a boom at the end of the 1930s and early 1940s as military spending began to stimulate the economy. Land that was vacant since the 1920s was built on, and some small new plats appeared. Developement continued through the WWII era. WWII developments include the partially Communist-influenced "Greenmont Viilliage" co-op housing complex & Gentile Air Force Station, as well as infill via small "emergency housing". The very early postwar plats included Bromfield Drive off of Far Hills, and a plat east of Shroyer at Stroop. The immediate postwar era was really one of infill of land that was originally subdivided in the 1920s..so great was the overplatting during that era. However, after 1950, new subdivisions appeared, laid out in the familiar curvy street/cul-de-sac pattern we have come to associate with suburbia. The postwar era also saw the first shopping center at Town & Country and large new industrial complex at Delco. This thread will look more at the prewar era, the era of 1920s subdivisions as shown in this map The Far Hills corridor had been subdivided as far as Stroop Road, but most of the areas south of Dorothy Lane had not been devleoped yet (in fact Dorothy Lane wasn't fully developed either). The interesting thing is that these little subdivisions all had their own names and idenity. In some other places, such as Louisville or northern Kentucky, they would have incorporated as small suburban cities. This didnt happen in Dayton, which made it easier for the whole area to incoroporate as a single town...somewhat easier, as Kettering almost didn't make it as there where three "de-attachment" referendums after the initial vote to incorporate. Castle Hills and adjacent areas and eastern Van Buren Twp wanted to seceed from "Kettering". ...one of the interesting plats was Lincoln Park, which was connected to Far Hills Avenue via a narrow strip, Lincoln Park Bouelevard. Only one house remains from this subdivision. A dark side of this era of suburban developement was that all of this suburbia was "restricted"; only whites and gentiles could buy in the area due to restrictive convenants on deeds, and the promotions for these suburbs were explicit about this, too. Some housing in this area, including Art Deco apartments. The Wilmington Pike corridor was less upscale. More of a continuation of "Belmont". The subdivisions in this area clustered around the old 19th century Beaverton settlement, and includes what is probably Daytons only true "railroad suburb", Pasadena. So. Starting with the oldest "Kettering" suburban area first, a few from Pasadena/Oakdale: Pasadena Pasadena depot Oakdale Beavertown And, since we are in the area, whats left of Beavertown, 19th century villiage mostly obliterated by the widening of Wilmington Pike in the early 1960s. Oakwood Extension North of Dorothy Lane, West of Wilmington Pike, is the "Oakwood Extension"...which really isn't as it's not in any way next to Oakwood. I'm thinking this was platted in response to the D-X branch line coming down Wilmington Pike, but never really took off until WWII, when some emergency housing went in. Then the place was built out in the late 1940s and 50s. In some ways this is sort of a 'better Drexel'..... Yet, there is a scattering of 'teens & 'twentys housing in this area. Interestingly it was laid out in part w. curvy streets around creeks that cut through the property. So, perhaps this is a good example of the transition from 'streetcar" to "auto" suburb..... wartime housing?.... older Wilmington Pike..though what we've seen so far is pretty old, the main drag through the area is, in look & feel, "postwar auto suburbia"..the suburban strip... WWII emergency housing, which you will find alot of in Fairborn and Riverside, too.... Pre WWI..very early housing in this subdivision... This plat actually has alleys... Streetscape... watercourse cutting through the plat, with a little footbridge. Dorothy Lane, at the southern edge of the plat... ...from 1916...... Nice bungalow... and, believe it or not, this neighborhood is being redeveloped in parts.... Your 1930s dollhouse in Kettering, compelte with permastone veneer, snazzy glass block, and massive evergreen hedges... ...and type of house ive seen a lot of in Dayton.... Oak Park Staying north Dorothy Lane, a large area west of Shroyer was sudivided in the 1920s. The pattern seems to be that the streets closer to Shroyer where built on first....the further east the newer the houses. A mix of plats, but the largest was called "Oak Park". ..big dormers! Your "Hansel & Gretl Cottage" in Kettering.....(or a suburban hobbit hole?) Included in this area is this street of art deco apartments..... hokey tacked-on porch. ... East Oakwood South of Dorothy Lane, off of Far Hills.... Platted during the 1920s, this is good area to see the transition from 1920s to 1930s/40s styles...from the bungalows, foursquares, and a sort of "Dutch Colonial" style to the "olde englishe cottage"...the first houses went up in the 1920s, then nothing until the prewar construction boom. Though we've seen a few "Oaks" .."Oakwood extension", "Oakdale", "Oakwood", etc, this area really is a continuation of Oakwood in its housing styles..... good contrast between 1920s and 1940s housing..the last of the foursquares next to a 1940s cottage. dutch gable and big dormer...you will see this style in Oakwood east of Far Hills, too.... budget version of a West-of-Far-Hills tudor revival estate Time Travel on Rockhill Avenue....from the 1920s to WWII...foursquares and bungalows, to the olde english cottage, to bare bones WWII housing... WWII wartime housing..... Various South of Dorthoy Lane, still....some "Pearl Harbor Suburbia", Chatham, west of Far Hills, was all built in the 1940s, probably just before Pearl Harbor....(for the Daytonians reading this, this was, believe it or not, an early Huber developement)..West of Far Hills, the houses & lots are larger.... Another example (of which i don't have pix of) of "Pearl Harbor Suburbia" is Oakview, at the intersecton of Stroop and Far Hills. The other plat at this intersection, Castle Hills, wasnt built on until after WWII. Lincoln Park...apparently a dead plat. It was eventually redeveloped as the Kettering Civic Center, Fraze Pavilion and surrounding apartments and such. Only one pre WWII house remains, this somewhat quirky bungalow one on Lincoln Park Blvd.... The outliers of prewar suburbia south of Stroop....off of Marshall, Rubicon Heights was an Olmstead Brothers desgin, but it wasnt built out until WWII and after..in fact it was barely built on at all...two of the houses from the 1920s.... Off of Far Hills, was Colonial Lane...again, apparently an early developement that wasn't really built out until after WWII. ...then, nothing until Centerville., which was also undergoing some minor suburban development in the 1920s and 40s....the area between was really still a mix working farms and country estates until the 1950s....with the occasional suburban house being built in the 40s...like this one.... This early suburbia is sort of a forgotten era, but for me its interesting as its a transitional era between "suburbia" and "the city"....if one can make such a distinction. Dayton has a number of transitional areas like this, perhaps the others are better examples or maybe more interesting to explore the change from city to suburb as there are more commercial examples (we didnt see any on this thread)......North Main Street, perhaps, or Salem Avenue. Then there are some good places to explore the "interurban suburb"...Ketterings Southern Hills, Moraine, but also Drexel, and North Dixie Drive. ..the change from transit-driven suburb to auto suburb. Another aspect thats interesting or hidden is the diversity of this early suburbia...the different history and character of the various subdivisions. Kettering as a political entity sort of obscures the diversity of the diffent types of developement that happened before 1950. Nowadays people think sometimes of Kettering as sort of uniform, stereotypical suburrbia, but it is really not that way at all.

I rather liked my time in Kentucky.

Seriously, its often forgotten that Ohio had a big coal mining industry, both deep and strip..probably more famous for strpmines as the state had the worlds largest dragline for awhile. I recall reading that the coal mines in the Steubenville area where so exetensive that they went under the city, and even under the Ohio River. I think I drove by a working deep mine once, on a road trip to the Wellston/Buckeye Furnace area.

Very impressive. This is really good to hear about as Youngstown really does have a potentially neat downtown, as so much of it is still there. And that Reality Bldg. looks like a great project too, and a good sign.....that theres the demand for that much downtown living.

What makes Waynesville interesting is that it is built on a fairly steep slope...

a "West of Far Hills" address has long been a prestigous if one lived south of Dayton. This trend started in the early 20th century when Dayton's leading industrialists began to relocate to Oakwood, and to build country estates in the hill country running south of Dayton, at the edge of the Great Miami river valley.. The first one was in Oakwood proper (and actually east of Far Hills)...John Pattersons' "Far Hills" estate, where he built a Swiss chalet mansion/country house. Oakwood was sort of a languishing horsecar suburb until the arrival of electric streetcars, and until Patterson(the owner of NCR) insisted his middle management (and later formen) move next to him in this now-accessible suburb. This started the white collar move south of Dayton, as NCR probably had the largest middle management staff of any company in Dayton. The Dayton Country Club also relocated to the hills south of town in the early 1800s, after the organizers where unable to secure property off of Salem Avenue. This certainly added to the desirablity of living south of town. South of the Country Club Patterson began to buy up property for what became Hills & Dales park, a "private park" for NCR employees which was later opened up to the public. John Patterson and Hills & Dales kicked off a trend of other capitalists relocating south. Edward Deeds, NCR manager and later CEO, and also a founder of DELCO and on the board of Pratt & Whitney, built his Moraine Farm estate, and apparently aquired land south of it for Moraine Park. Charles Kettering, another founder of DELCO, also located south to his "Ridgeleigh Terrace" estate James Cox, a newspaper tycoon and political figure (to the level of being Presidential candidate), built next to Kettering and Deeds, establishing his Trails End estate. The result was a belt of parkland land running south of Dayton as far as Alex Bell Road, in private hands but apparently somewhat open to the public, as can be seen on the following maps ('north' is to the left on the maps). The parkland was proposed to be connected to each other and to Dayton via a "Southern Bouelvard" (only the part between Dorothy Lane and Stroop was built). In order to make the property more accessible a nearby interurban railroad was induced to run branch lnes into the estate country (shown in red). The story is that this was to make the parkland more accessible for recreation and to mimize auto traffic, but one has to wonder if there was also the idea of making it more accessible for development purposes. In fact a small settlement was established at the end of one of the lines at Stroop Rd., "Delco Dell", for workers displaced by the 1913 flood (housed in pre-cut houses "shipped from Chicago"). The estate country in two enlargments, repositioned in the more familiar north-south cartographic alignment....The Olmstead Brothers firm (sucessor to FLO of Central Park fame) did the landscaping for the Dayton Country Club and Hills & Dales, and I wonder if they also did the Moraine Park and Ridgeleigh Terrace landscape plan, too...which would be pretty interesting as this could well have been developed by the firm as one continuous design.... Hills & Dales.... ..& Moraine Park/Farm.... By the 1920s the move south was well underway, as shown by this 1920s map. Streetcar service was being extended deeper into Oakwood, along Far Hills Avenue (the former Lebanon Pike) as part of the ongoing land speculation in this the hot suburban area...yet, there never was an interurban line extending beyond Oakwood into Centerville and Lebanon...thus this area was one of the very early "automobile suburbs" of Dayton. ...tinted in green is Hills & Dales and also the Far Hills estate. The inteurban and streetcar lines are in red, and the city limits of an expanding Oakwood is in blue. As you can see Hills & Dales extended on both sides of Dorothy Lane. John Patterson had donated he northern part to Dayton, but retained the southern part, which was going to be subdivided (portions of the northern part were, too, along Ridgeway). A plat map from 1930 showing Van Buren Township, todays Kettering, south of Dorothy Lane and West of Far Hills. The areas tinted in yellow are the properties owned by some prominent Daytonians....Cox, Deeds Kettering, the Meads (of Mead Paper), the Patterson estate, the Talbots (Talbot was an engineer and real estate speculator, builder of the Talbot Tower, phase one of which was underway when this map was made), & the Taits (Tait was the founder and CEO of Dayton Power & Light). Its interesting that it seems that some of these properties are held in the wives or relatives names. Quite a bit of land was in speculation or being subdivided by this time...it appears what we know as postwar suburbia in this part of town was already on its way to being that in the "Roaring 20s"... A close-up of the plat map. You can see some of the names of the plats and real estate companies...."Hills-Dale", the "Uplands Realty Co.", etc. ...and what the place looked like on a 1931 street map/atlas....the former Hills & Dales park in green, as is the former Kettering Estate, Ridgleigh Terrace. They where both on their way to be subdivided.... the same map without the colors....the interurban branch line along Southern Bouelevard is visible, too...as are some of the subdivision names (Short Hills)..... The interurban was, at the end, the Cincinnati and Lake Erie, which staged this publicity photo of their new express cars on the Southern Bouelevard branch line, capturing one of the mansions that where being built west of Far Hills (in reality these cars would never be on this line) (image courtesy of the Wright State Archives and Special Collections Dept). Roughly the same scene today. ..a close up of the house.... By 1950 not much has happened. By now most of the developed you see along Far Hills has been built-out, and some early postwar subdivisions are appearing.....we are on the verge of Van Buren Township becoming Kettering. ...and the area today....mostly north of Stroop... ..with the prewar street system in black and abandonded or vacated streets in red. All of the former Hills & Dales park south of Dorothy lane has been subdivided and built on. However, as you can see, quite a bit of that old Ridgeleigh Terrace subdivision off of Southern Blvd was never built on..it became the site of the Seventh Day Adventist church and parking for Kettring Hospital. A lot is still open land. The Ridgeleigh Terrace east of Southern Boulevard became, mostly, the Kettering Hospital complex... Ridgeleigh Terrace the mansion still stands, though. (located on the hill, in the woods behing the hospital)...its not accessible to the public, but here is a pix of it (ironically, with a bunch of Packards parked in front ...from the Packard Museum) Since we are talking about Kettering, a pix of the suburbs' namesake, from the cover of Time.... and a biography from Wikipedia CF Kettering was still alive when the suburb was incorporated, and he agreed to the use of his name for the new town...he wasn't the founder, just the most famous resident. Anway, on to some pix. Another VIP and his estate.... James M Cox, founder of Cox Enterprises media company, three time Ohio governor, and presidential candidate (his VP running mate later went on to win the presidency) ...during his presidential campaign. bio from the Dayton Daily News. And the mansion. Trails End. I took a tour of this house 15 years ago when it was remodelled as a guest house for a local company. The place probably had much better views over the valley before the trees had grown. There is small display or mini-museum in it with things from Coxes political career. Since one of the drivers of the developement of the area was the amenity of Hills and Dales Park some pix...this park, though owned by Dayton, is actually within the city limits of Kettering. (local landmark Patterson statute) Crossing Dorothy Lane.... ..and heading down Southern Bouelevard to Stroop.... through whats left of the old Ridgeleigh Terrace grounds.... past Kettering Hospital... & the Aventist Church To the end of the line at Stroop, with this rustic lodge.... and collection of little houses....I dont know if they where the Delco Dell houses, or servants quarters....but they are here, probably, due to this being the end of the line of the interurban branch... Nearby is the Edward Deeds estate, Moraine Farm. Edward Deeds was friends and business partners with Charles Kettering, and also, later, CEO of NCR. However, Deeds was perhaps somewhat corrupt, as he was investigated for war profiteering in WWI. He did try to build an aviation industry here, via the big Dayton-Wright plant in Moraine City, but refocused his aviation interests to Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut. His wife donated Carillon Park. bio Deeds was an amature astronmer, so this house has the unusual feature of an observatory tower Moraine Farm from a distance Views of the main house, dating from 1914, in a sort of spanish/mission revival style. This house just rambles on and on, so its tough to take a good all-encompassing pix of it.... A view up the hill behind the house. The grounds of Ridgeleigh Terrace was developed in part as a gated community, and the house peaking out from the trees is part of that community.... a view across whats left of the grounds to Modern Manor (better known as "Huber South"), and the GM Moraine Assembly in the distance...the Machine in the Garden. The old Dayton-Wright plant from WWI has been torn down in the last few years, but was right next to the Moraine Assemebly plant And a view south into what was once Moraine Park Moraine Park..its hills and valleys...(inlcuding some adjacent property) was developed into a network of exclusive housing developments and country clubs. The houses are mostly more modern, but there are some older ones dating from before WWII. (I particularly like this one, with the big urn in front...it has an interesting "stripped classical" feel to it...very swellegant....very Hollywood or jazz age.... [/img] In the low wooded hills in the distance are even more developements...one is getting into Washington Township and the Mad River Road area there....and it all gets pretty inaccessible due to small private estates and little gated communities....tho this looks pretty rustic, we are still well within the I-675 beltway here. Another penetration into the "Moraine Park" hill country....along Tait Road most of the houses are modern.... With a few period reproductions, like this Shingle Style copy... continuing to climb into the hills along the Moraine Country Club.... past this sculpture garden view into the golf course again.. even higher into the hills....parallelling the golf course.... until we reach a gated community....road continues up into the hills, who knows how far.... There are little loops and cul-de-sacs pulling off of Tait Road, with a mix of architect-designed and spec modern houses....perhaps one of the larger collections of high-end residential modernism in the area? ...including this rather large modernist country house, perhaps owned or buit by the DP&L CEO Tait. This house dates to 1939 or 40, which makes it one of the earliest, if not the earliest modern house in Dayton. It is sort of in the European "Bauhause" modren style, with a fiew "moderne" (and even classical) details ....like the banding at the corners. Not visible enough to shoot is the rear, with a large window walls and a semicircular bay with terrace on top...at the time it was built this house would have had a fantastic view over the Miami valley, with the big Frigidaire appliance plant in the center. Great view for the executive of a power company... and, from recent times this faux tudor revival (perhaps an ironic reference to the pelthora of tudor revival houses elsewhere West of Far Hills)... Heading back down to Stroop Road.... The above was mostly modern. The real charm of this area is, however, the abundance of revival architecture, some very larger versions of tudor and other revival styles...small estates in some cases. We will start out with this house in "Short Hills". This was supposedly a "Kettering" house too, but I think built by the son of Charles Kettering. the approach..... The Mansion on the Hill All very "F Scott Fitxgerlad/Great Gatsby"...the country estate..... Another suburban estate....which we have seen upthread.... And now, what you've all been waiting for, for the Tudor gallery....Daytons favorite revival style....plenty of great examples all over town...Kettering West of Far Hills has its share.....all of these are between Far Hills, Southern Blvd, Dorothy Lane, and Stroop Rd, probably all built before WWII during Ketterings subruban prehistoric era as Van Buren Township.... (well, this one is more "French Provinicial, ?) The area really is a continuation of Oakwood...Ridgway is the connecting street as it has its own bridge across Dorothy Lane...here it turns into this wooded lane diving into little ravines and hollows...one would never imagine one is in deep within an urban area here.... With even more big houses tucked into the woods, including this tudor one and this spanish one. ....the Spanish one reminds us that its not all "olde Englishe" in Kettering.... After the war, there was quite a bit of banal spec building going on, even for rather large houses. Some, though, do rise above and become fair, though unispired, examples of midcentury modernism.... Those of you familiar with Dayton & Kettering will note that I didn't say anything about the Southern Hills/South Dixie area...which is also part of Kettering. I will be doing another, more "historical" thread on that area, along with Moraine, later, as its sort of a different "story" than this "West of Far Hills" mansion/estate district.

I think that Dayton heritage streetcar concept is pretty interesting as there is that novely aspect of riding on an streetcar nowadays, so first they start it out as a recreational system with some limited transit utility........then, as people get used to and want more they can extend the system beyond a simple heritage streetcar concept to true light rail.

Too bad. I was wondering if this could be pitched to suburbanites more, somehow. Say, if the line extended pretty far out, like to Kings Island or Lebanon.

If Dayton ever gets around to building that heritage streetcar system they could move it here....which probably would be appropriate since this was an interurban hub and they used to build interurban cars here...

Very interesting. It looks like the upscale trend continues to be "south". I was wondering if Beavercreek would be developing as an upscale housing site as an alternative to the "south" trend that has long been the case here in Dayton.