Riverdale was the catch-all name for the area along what is now North Main Street, north of the Miami River from downtown Dayton.

 

 

 

This is now split into a few different neighborhoods.  The part closest to downtown is Mcphersontown, after the original bridgehead settlement.  Beyond Mcphersontown, and I-75, is Middle Riverdale.  North of that is the Santa Clara business district.

 

This thread will look more at Middle Riverdale, between I-75 and the Forest Avenue & Main Street intersection.

 

History

 

Riverdale in 1869. 

 

At this time there is already development scattered along N Main.  Forest Avenue appears already as Tates Mill Road (this road  probably dates to the early 1800s’s, as a shortcut to the old Dayton View covered bridge).  The millrace crossing the bend of the Miami River appears, with some mills where Forest meets the river.   This millrace and dam was built in the 1830s.  McPhersontown is a small bridgehead settlement strung out on Main Street.

 

 

 

 

By 1875 Riverdale was beginning to flesh out a bit more, with greenhouses and horticultural industry appearing between Forest and Main.   The first streets between Main and the river appear.

 

 

 

The Dayton View Hydraulic

 

 

Around 1870 the Dayton View Hydraulic was built along the route of the old millrace, and the diversion dam was rebuilt on the river.  Control gates and weirs where built on each ends of the hydraulic canal, and the area that is now McKinley Park was reserved for industrial sites to use the water power.   This was the last hydraulic race built in Dayton, and its waterpower was never fully utilized.

 

 

 

From the 1880 Census of Waterpower:

“Power at Dayton View”

(the article begins with a description of the construction of the dam on the Great Miami, and then continues on to describe the race),”….A masonry bulkhead with head-gates has been built by the hydraulic company, at a cost from  $6,000 to $8,000, and admits water to the canal, which is about three-quarters of a mile long, designed with a width of 50 feet at water surface and a water depth of about 6 feet.  Where this race reaches the vicinity of the river again are located the mills, power being utilized by the Stillwell & Bierce Manufacturing Company, manufacture of turbine water wheels; by A.A. Symonds, manufacturer of cutting bar knives for paper mills, planing and machine knives, and by C.B. Palmer for a flouring mill.

 

“Between the dam and tail race the river descends 4 or 5 feet, making the fall at the mills nearly or quite 11 feet…serious trouble from the source is not of long duration, the mills themselves are out of reach of high water, and the head race and adjoining  meadows are well protected by dikes.

 

The water privilege is owned by the Dayton View Hydraulic Company, capital stock $75,000, which leases land and water to manufacturers for terms of ninety-nine years. A “run” is here defined as 300 cubic feet of water per minute under a fall of 12 feet, for which the regular rental is $300 per annum.  The company is proprietor of 16 acres of land adjoining the lower part of the race, suitable for building sites, and is desirous of leasing this, together with the remainder of its power.  It assumes with with a fall of 12 feet it has forty-three permanent runs, and of these eleven had been leased by January 1883”

 

The report said the horsepower of wheels in use was 150 hp, but had a capacity of  370 hp at average low water.

 

Comparisons of development along the Dayton View Hydraulic, from 1869, 1875, and finally in 1880s and 1890s

 

 

 

The tailrace spillway

 

 

And a detail of the industrial development around the hydraulic in the 1890s, I think.

 

 

Stillwell & Bierce was the major industry to develop along the Hydraulic (locating there in 1870), with smaller industries being a flour mill and Simonds edge tool works.  The last addition was the precursor of Dayton Power & Light, which built the first electric generating station in Dayton at this location, using waterpower to drive the dynamos.   

 

 

“This important feature of the Dayton’s industrial establishments was inaugurated in 1866…The company manufactures the “Victor” and “Eclipse” turbine water wheels and Stillwell’s patent lime extracting heater and filter.  In 1881 they added the manufacture of Odell’s roller mill…This latter machine…is the new process for crushing wheat for flour mills by gradual reduction…”

 

Stillwell & Bierce from Grafton Hill, McPhersontown in the distance.

 

 

 

“…during the Centennial exhibition, the company fitted up a heater and turbine wheel in the Machinery Building both of which received medals…The firm furnished three 55” turbine wheels for the Washburn “A” Mill and the Pillsbury “A” mill at Minneapolis, the largest flour mills in the world…each wheel developing 1,200 to 1,400 horse power. They manufacture turbine water wheels from six inches to six feet in diameter”<

 

 

This close-up shows how the water was drawn from the hydraulic in flumes to run turbines, with discharge via a tailrace  The Simonds plant used a shaft from its turbine to run belt drives for its grinding machines, but Stillwell & Bierce was powered, by this time, by electricity as the Sanborn shows the turbine running a dynamo.   

 

 

A description of the first electric plant in Dayton:, where water power  becomes hydroelectric power.

 

“Here they erected a an electric light plant of 224 arc lights…Power is furnished by four 75 HP Victor turbine water wheels and one 150 hp Buckeye steam engine. The electricity is developed by two 55-light dynamos.  The city was lighted the first time by the electric light on the night of Feb. 16, 1883”.

 

(by the time of this Sanborn an additional steam engine was installed)

 

 

…interesting the way they rate the capacity of this early powerplant by number of lights (akin to horsepower or run of stone), not by KVA or wattage.

 

By the 1880s some additional streets were platted, but the area was still used for greenhouses.   

 

 

In 1888 the White Line street railway was built, leading to real estate boom in Riverdale, with a number of streets platted between Main and the Miami and Stillwater rivers.  The place name “Riverdale” started being used in the 1890s.

 

 

The White Line had its power house and car barn on Washington Street, and ultimately connected two amusement parks on either end of its line, though the original end of the line on the northern leg was Forest and Main.

 

 

 

 

Riverdale was fully platted by 1900 the White Line was extended north to the Fairview Amusement park, and the full range of institutions went in to the neighborhood, including churches and a school.

 

 

 

 

Van Cleve elementary school was on Helena between Forest and Main

 

 

Riverdale apparently was one of Dayton’s playgrounds, with two early amusement parks, Fairview Park, with its spring fed lake,  and White City, with its swimming area and “Dooms Day” funhouse.  There were also two parks run by clubs or associations.(click on the hyperlinks for a vintage postcard tour of the amusement parks)

 

Though not shown on this map there where five canoe clubs on the Miami and Stillwater Rivers, reminiscent of Philadelphia’s  Boathouse Row and “Schuylkill Navy”.

 

 

 

 

By 1911 the old Dayton View Hydraulic was abandoned and filled in.  Stillwell & Bierce had merged with Smith-Vaile in North Dayton, and operations where eventually consolidated at that location as Platt Iron Works.  The Dayton View Hydraulic never was used to its full potential, being somewhat obsolete in a city that had moved to steam and later electric for powering industry, thus Riverdale didn't develope as an industrial/working class neighborhood.

 

The filled-in hydraulic and old industrial sites were then converted into Great Miami Boulevard and McKinley Park. 

 

This park and parkway ensemble was ultimately disfigured by the construction of I-75.  Yet, during the 1910s and 20s this was a popular site for large apartment buildings, some in the Spanish Revival style popular in Dayton.

 

 

 

Forest and Main Business Corner.

 

This is the iconic image of Riverdale, one of Dayton’s urban set-pieces.  An imposing flat-iron commercial building with the corner articulated by a tower, now apparently vacant.   I recall there was a wood carver or wood sculptor in here back around 1988-89,  right when I moved to Dayton.

 

 

 

 

 

” FIRE HOUSE #14, 1422 North Main Street, housed the old Hose Company #14 from 1901 to 1979. In 1917, the company made the last run in Dayton with horse-drawn wagons. An excellent example of a Mission style fire house, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

(from the MCHS Riverdale web page)

 

 

 

The red canopies mark the Grub Steak.  Dating from 1963, it is one of the very few neighborhood restaurants left in Dayton.  It is a steak and rib house with a cozy cocktail bar, done up in a 1960s-sytle dimly lit “lounge” interior style (one hopes there is some Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin on the jukebox!).

 

The sign says “Joe Bissett”, but he has sold out and the place is run by his former manager.  (Bissett now makes salad dressing, available at Kroger and DLM)

 

 

..and next door is Gold For Ya Mouth

 

 

Vacant and boarded up commercial building near Forest & Main.

 

 

 

Main Street

 

 

Main street is lined with these late Victorian frame houses.  This is a good neighborhood for turrets.

 

 

 

 

 

Old church.

 

 

 

MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH, 1222 North Main Street, was founded as a mission of the First Baptist Church in 1892. In 1893, the church was built in the English Gothic style. It took on its present appearance when it was remodeled in 1914.

(text from the MCHS Riverdale web page)

 

There are a number of commercial conversions on Main, where one story business fronts have been added to houses.

 

 

 

“suburban” style mini-mart, with parking in front.  Old factory to the rear.   This factory is a bit of an anomaly as this wasn’t an industrial area.  Across the street from this is a Family Dollar, with a similar parking-lot-in-the front treatment.

 

 

At the corner, partially obscured by trees, is The House on North Main Street.

 

Back in the 1990s this was a series on local TV, sponsored by DP&L, based on those “This Old House” and “Home Again with Bob Vila” home improvement shows.  They took this house and went through a renovation via a TV series.

 

 

I guess the idea was to encourage people to move into town and fix up old houses,  but I think the difficulty of restoration as shown on TV scared off more people than it inspired.

 

 

 

Looking down a side street towards the river

 

 

Old church, with big parking lot on Main

 

 

Nice old commercial block

 

 

 

Dayton Nut Company…I don’t think I’ve seen these for sale anywhere.  Apparently they have retail sales in this store.

 

 

More examples of commercial conversions.

 

 

And a Shingle Style house in excellent condition

 

 

A multi-family building.  Although Dayton does have some interesting individual examples of apartment and townhouse blocks this was not a typical type of housing in this city..

 

 

 

Getting closer to I-75, one begins to pick up on car dealerships.  North Main Street developed as one of Dayton’s auto-rows in the 1920s, more in the McPherson town area south of I-75, but this bleeds to the north of I-75 north.

 

 

 

Suttmiller’s.   This was a supper club/night club from back in the 1960s.  They had a piano bar and a stage area for touring nightclub acts.  Suttmiller’s  is fondly remembered by Daytonians of a certain age:

 

“I was hoping I was not the only one who remembered Suttmiller’s on N. Main St. I grew up there and all the Suttmiller brothers were wonderful gentlemen. My parents hung out in the piano bar with Gardner Benedict playing the piano and my parents and their friends taking turns singing.”

 

 

 

Suttmiller’s closed years ago and the building went through various owners; currently it is apparently called “Club Rain”.

 

 

Looking down the Great Miami Boulevard. 

 

 

 

 

The Zone of Destruction

 

I use this term a lot.  I got it from a book I read years ago about the abandonment and demolition in the South Bronx during the 1970s.  Dayton has it’s own zones of destruction, and this is the one for Riverdale,

 

Most of this area is the few blocks between Great Miami Boulevard and I-75,. though the frequency of vacancies and board-ups indicate that the entire neighborhood could thin-out in the future.  One can spot board-ups throughout this thread.

 

Vacant streets

 

 

 

Some streets still have houses.

 

 

Vacant lots, boarded up houses, and remnant street and yard trees, as this neighborhood slowly returns to a prairie/woodland savanna ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

Empty house, vacant lot, and downtown skyline in the distance.

 

 

Some remnant houses

 

 

 

 

And one still in fairly good condition.  As elsewhere in Dayton there is deterioration and abandonment side by side with houses that are kept-up and remain nice.

 

 

Back on to Main Street, close to the interstate, car dealers dominate the streetscape

 

 

 

 

Big car lot behind closed dealership, with some funky curved piece bumping out from the dealership building…

 

 

 

Great Miami Boulevard.

 

Boulevard on one side, vacant car lot on the other.  Tear up the asphalt and turn it into a big lawn

 

 

 

As this was a hydraulic canal related to an industrial area, the houses here are more of the urban I-house and cottage variety one sees in working-class neighborhoods of East Dayton.

 

 

 

Surviving apartment house.  There was a cluster of apartment houses along the boulevard, some surviving into the 1990s.  They are all gone now except for this one and one in McPherson town, and one facing McKinley Park.

 

 

 

Great Miami ends in the distance at I-75.  Grassy lawn was a Spanish-style apartment block.

 

 

 

Auto dealership lots as a way of doing urban clearances…Dead street, empty dealer lot, and apartment house.

 

 

Looking down toward Grandview Hospital.  Hospitals seem to big drivers in disfiguring neighborhoods.  In some cases they sponsored urban renewal projects, in others their expansion replaces neighborhoods with medical buildings, and in this case a neighborhood was replaced with a parking lot.

 

 

”Riverdale Triangle”

 

The district between Forest, Main, and Great Miami forms a rough triangle, hence my nickname for this area.  One begins to see the land rise a bit here, out of the river bottoms.  This area is the one that had the greenhouses and planting beds one saw in the old maps at the beginning of the thread.

 

Moving into the triangle,  a mix of vacant lots and older homes.

 

(parking lot just visible to the left is for a convenience store)

 

 

 

 

 

The first street up (to the north) from Great Miami Blvd.   This street already appears on the 1869 map as the first one up from the old mill race, later DV Hydraulic canal.   

 

 

One can see the houses here are a bit older in style, including doubles….,

 

 

….cottages….,

 

 

 

…..and urban I-houses, as we have seen in my threads from East Dayton.   More housing styles associated with working-class neighborhoods.

 

 

 

There apparently has been some demolitions on this street, which opens up some views over the city.

 

 

Heading further north into the triangle one can see housing styles change and the size of the houses increase.   Riverdale apparently was more of a bourgeois neighborhood after the arrival of  the streetcar. 

 

 

 

It doesn’t get much better than this…a vision of  what late Victorian Dayton could be if there was a change of heart or change of consciousness in people toward urban living, and people began to fix up their houses or moved into the city and restored them…

 

 

Density in wood.  This almost resembles the tight build of Old Louisville, but done up in wood rather than brick.

 

 

The triangular shape of this district means streets intersect at odd angles, giving the place a picturesque feel.  There are also some apartment houses here, as can be in the background.

 

 

 

 

Dollhouse on the corner lot

 

 

Tight fits of big houses on smaller lots., one nearly at zero lot line.  Note the start of the board-up/abandonment cycle…the house to the left is boarded up, but has a for- sale sign, meaning it is theoretically still in the housing market.  But who would buy it?

 

 

I think these two are new infill…the one on the right is a pretty convincing take on the bungalow.

 

 

This street parallels Forest

 

 

…as the land slowly rises in elevation the houses sit on sloping lots.

 

 

 

Looking up Geyer Street, really more an alley, which has housing and a small factory inserted.    This was a candy factory, according to the old Sanborns.  This is a good example of how the land rises in Dayton, via these long slopes up out of the river bottoms..

 

 

 

 

At the north end of the triangle, doubles and apartments on Helena, including some early garages.

 

 

The former site of the Van Cleve elementary school.

 

 

 

Taking a peek down Forest, which really belongs on its own pix thread.  Forest was somewhat upscale, sort of an extension of Grafton Hill.

 

 

 

Looking up Main toward Santa Clara

 

 

An example of the  Dutch/German renaissance revival style popular in Dayton… old house at just north of Main & Forest

 

 

Looking up into Five Oaks.  One can see the land begin to rise here…

 

 

But we will head down Helena toward the river

 

 

 

 

The River in Riverdale

 

This neighborhood is bounded by the Stillwater and Great Miami Rivers, though they are not that visible due to levy construction.  Riverside Drive also acts as a barrier as it is a heavily traveled alternative to the stop-and-go traffic on Main Street.  Riverside was the first, I think, of the “marginal river boulevards” called for by the city plans of the 1920s and 30s as a way of accommodating cross-town auto traffic.

 

 

 

 

The bridge here leads to Island Park, the site of the old White City amusement park, now the site of a band shell and free outdoor concerts.. 

 

 

Fanciful, yet detailed, decorative carvings indicative of the “city beautiful” artistic approach to public works.

 

 

 

 

Riverside Drive Victoriana

 

 

….and larger foursquares.

 

 

 

Yet closer examination indicates these are vacant and abandoned

 

 

 

 

The levee walk and river along the Dayton Canoe Club

 

 

 

The Dayton Canoe Club, sole survivor of the canoe club community along the rivers here

 

 

” DAYTON CANOE CLUB, 1020 Riverside Drive. In its heyday, the Dayton Canoe Club was one of five canoe clubs located on the banks of the Stillwater and Great Miami Rivers. In 1912, Riverdale resident Charlie Schaffer joined with fifty other prominent businessmen to found the Canoe Club, after the adjacent Stillwater Canoe Club (no longer in existence) closed its doors to new members.”

(text and image from the MCHS Riverdale web page)

 

Side street from Riverside to Main

 

 

Stone apartment building

 

 

The Steele Dam.   This dam is on the site of the dam that fed the Dayton View hydraulic and, before that, the old mill dam of the 1830s.   

 

 

Looking back up Riverside Drive, with the land rising imperceptibly to the north in low hills.  Further north along the rivers, nearing Englewood, this landscape becomes a deeper valley with pronounced steep-slope valley walls.

 

 

 

Envoi

 

 

 

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For more on Riverdale, see the MCHS /Dayton History  Riverdale  web page.

 

 

Wow, one of your best tours yet! Nice mix of interesting housing stock.

 

Great job!

Yeah, I was getting burned out on East Dayton and am exploring other parts of town now....

Fascinating! There are still some wonderful buildings there that need some love.

 

Eleven or twelve feet of fall with a good volume can produce a lot of power when used to drive turbines! It will be interesting to see if interest in hydropower revives as oil and gas become more costly. It can never sustain the energy use that people are accustomed to, but it could be a lot better than any alternative.

With all that Riverside/Helena/Main Street driving, you atleast stopped in Chicken Louie's, correct?

^

I took the pix of Suttmillers from Chicken Louies parking lot.

 

When I was there I was hearing these wierd noises....it turns out Chicken Louie pipes recorded chicken squawks into the parking lot via a PA system!

 

I ended up stopping in and getting some Cajun chicken pieces.  Pretty hot, actually.  I can imagine what their "hot" BBQ is like.  I see they also sell sweet potato pie.

 

Fascinating! There are still some wonderful buildings there that need some love.

 

Based on hard data (census numbers) the census tract that is this part of Riverdale lost over 20% of its housing units between 1990 and 2000.  So the place is on its way out.  The housing here is pretty interesting, though.  If I had one  I'd set up my computer or drafting table in one of those upper turret rooms .

 

Eleven or twelve feet of fall with a good volume can produce a lot of power when used to drive turbines! It will be interesting to see if interest in hydropower revives as oil and gas become more costly. It can never sustain the energy use that people are accustomed to, but it could be a lot better than any alternative.

 

For low water the flow was 270 cubic feet per second. The volume here was more than I thought as that census report from the 1880s says the canal was 6' deep.  This is by far deeper than the navigation canals built through town, that were also tapped for waterpower. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just found this.  Thanks, once again.

Joe Bissett, he committed suicide back in the late 70's.  I used to hang out at "Grub" when I was in college and early adulthood back in the 80's.  Still doing a good business, then.  Last time I was there, probably 3 or 4 years ago.

 

The stone apartment building, on the corner of Riverside and Pioneer, my older stepsister lived there back in the 70's.  It was a RAT HOLE back then.  Cheap housing for Dayton's unemployed welfare class.  It was purchased I think sometime in the late 80's by a developer who wanted to turn the project into upscale condos...attracting people who might like the canoe club.  Obviously it didn't work.

 

Thanks again.  If you still do these things, get up further north, to Forrest Park area of now Harrison Tshp.  Arthur Beerman's house is around Philadelphia and ?? Siebenthaller ?? Also the Golden Triangle, Otterbein Ave, Harvard Blvd, Benson Drive, Burroughs Drive, the old Methodist Seminary, that is a beautiful area of Dayton proper that has also declined.

 

 

I thought it would be good to give an update on this area. The reconstruction of I-75 has changed much in the area around Great Miami Blvd. The Blvd. has been completely rebuilt from Main to Riverview. The old Suttmiller's looks like it is now an office building. That one remaining apartment building on the Blvd. is gone. So are the old car dealerships on Main at the I-75 interchange. The area around the interchange looks ripe for development. Hopefully the City and perhaps the hospital can get something going here.  :-)

I got more intel on this area via my involvement with Occupy Dayton...apparenlty Grandview Hospital has expansion plans that would take it all the way to Main Street....so long term that area closer to the interestate is going to be changing....

 

The rest of the area continues to slide and deteriorate.  Not much positive to say.

 

 

Another informative, fascinating Jeffery thread. It's such a shame. What a pretty neighborhood, turning into a depopulated waste.

 

I used to ride this part of the bikeway back in college in the 70s when it was new. These pictures remind me of the construction details of the trail. Look how freaking FAR you would go down if you rode off the trail. On one hand you would probably hit the edge of the river and go in the drink over your handlebars... on the other hand you would ride right out into a lane of Riverside Drive and probably get crushed by traffic.

 

I am used to modern safety features like fencing. No other trail in the region has such steep unprotected dropoffs.