Catholic Sprawl?  Sort of.  This is an interesting combination of two suburban growth things…suburbanization of Catholic institutions and interurban suburbia.

 

The subject is the Sister of the Precious Blood convent/motherhouse “out Salem Pike” and a look at some suburban platting activity nearby.  Here is a location map (red box is the convent)

 

 

The story starts with an interurban coming through here in the early years of the 19th century, running up to Clayton and Greenville via Salem Pike, as a branch of the “Overlook Route” to Piqua (which ran up Main Street). 

 

This kicked off platting activity all along the line as it approached Dayton.  In this area it there were the two Fort McKinley plats (I have absolutely no idea as to why this name as there is no evidence that I could find that there was ever a military installation up here).  There was also the “Maplewood Addition” to Fort McKinley and “Albert”.  Albert was in existence by 1910 as there are houses on the plat from then. 

 

 

The Sisters of the Precious Blood were originally based up in Maria Stein (Mercer or Auglaize County, north of Dayton), but needed to relocate closer to Dayton for various reasons.  They selected a site just beyond “Albert” and “Fort McKinley” and built here in 1923 (perhaps there were later additions in the 1920s). 

 

Possibly around this time an additional plat went in, “Green Meadow”.  Maybe it was platted in response to the convent coming in, as perhaps a speculation that this was going to be a hot area.

 

 

…as can be seen the Sisters had quite a spread, on both sides of Salem.  Presumably this land was farmed, with the convent complex being directly adjacent to Salem and the car line. 

 

Precious Blood fits in very well with a little-remarked phenomenon of suburbanization.  1920s suburban Catholic stuff is actually pretty common in places with substantial Catholic populations, and perhaps became sort of an attractor to the suburbs, turning peoples minds to the possibility of ocating out beyond the city. Usually cemetarys were out on the fringe, then other things, like convents, orphanages, and seminarys.  A good example akin to Precious Blood would Techny, in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

 

At first these places were reached by rail, later by car. 

 

By the 1930s & 40s, economic hard times and auto use killed off the interurbans (this  Salem Avenue line closed in the 1920s already), as well as real estate activity.  This was a common fate to outer interurban suburbs, with blocks and blocks of vacant lots.  The famous example was Niles Center (AKA Skokie) outside of Chicago, but there was also Ardmore and Villa Park in the western suburbs.

 

 

Dayton had a lot of interurban subdivisions north of town, and most did get some construction, or at least survived the depression & war to be built on in the late 1940s.  The only one that completely failed was Green Meadow, which ended up totally vacated plat. 

 

 

During and after the war new construction first infilled vacant lots on the existing plats.  But by the late 1940s and early 1950s new subdivisions surfaced in the area, with the first being Brentwood Village on the old Green Meadow plat (architecturally Brentwood was still following the 1930s /40s tudor cottage look, not ranches yet).  By 1956 the undeveloped property between the prewar interurban plats & Salem Avenue and the Precious Blood land was filled in with plats

 

 

Eventually the order sold off parts of their property.  The first to go wasn’t a sale but the transfer of a portion of the property north of Salem to a new parish (in 1948), which first met in a converted barn.  Later the southern part of the property bordering on Free Pike was sold for the Northgate subdivision.  Later sales was for commercial strip development on Salem Avenue,

 

The landholding situation today…the order apparently retains only a small portion of the original property.  A part of the convent is now the Maria-Joseph nursing home.

 

 

The buildings on site are pretty impressive, as Catholic ecclesiastical architecture usually is.  The two towers are real landmark in the area as they can be seen from afar due to being on the top of a hill or rise coming up out of the Wolf Creek valley.

 

 

One of the flanking buildings. 

 

 

The red brick buildings are now the nursing home.  The nuns are in this buff brick Italianate building next door (with that very nice tile roof).  I am not sure what the original relation is between the two, or which is older.

 

 

 

These would have been pretty impressive back before suburban growth really kicked in on Salem as they would have been the largest thing around.

 

Taking a peek inside (neogothic porte-cochere ruins the façade)

 

 

 

 

The grounds are quite nice

 

 

Two cemetarys, defined by an evergreen hedge, as “outdoor rooms”.  One focused on a grotto

 

 

…the other on a calvary

 

 

Landscaping is pretty nice…

 

 

And, finally, from one a glimpse of the broad Wolf Creek valley, looking south/southwest

 

 

 

Thanks!

I've often wondered about that complex.

Beautiful place, with an interesting history.