Continuing the prehistory of sprawl north of Dayton, I’ve posted on on pre-Depression auto plats and the US 25 superhighway of the 1940s.  This is a joine between the two..a farmette development next to US 25.

 

The site in 1931.  Per this real estate map the site was not a subdivision yet.  Owned by John & Lucy Pierce.  Maybe Marianne was the daughter? 

 

 

 

In 1942-43 the super-highway was built through the area, skirting the site of the plat. 

 

 

….which apparently was platted in the very late 1930s or early to mid 1940s, because it appears on this mid/late 1940s map as a new plat among the pre-war/pre-Depression developments north of the city, north of Needmore Road and east of US 25:

 

 

Interestingly enough the plat as shown here had an access from the ostensibly limited access highway, and one from Needmore Road on a small strip of land (this was named Wadsworth Road)

 

 

 

Notably there was no frontage road. 

 

The subdivision was laid out with narrow street frontage but with exceptionally deep lots;  the “country estates”.  This was pretty common out in California for ranchette and mini-farm developments.  The Louisville suburb of Fairdale has a lot of this, too.  But maybe not so much here in Ohio. 

 

The modern parcelization from the auditors website:

 

 

Marianne Country Estates wasn’t a paper plat.  It was built-on during the 1940s, because it appears in a late 1940s planning study as a housing problem area, which probably means this:

 

1. Wartime jerry building

2. Lack of sewers and perhaps lack of plumbing (outhouses)

3. No water supply: wells and cisterns.

 

This was probably cleaned up as there was 1950s-era housing visible on the plat today.  So it became a place to build during the postwar boom.  In fact it was largely built-out by the mid 1950s, as per this 1954-55 USGS topo:

 

 

 

To the south, Needmore Road was still, at this time, a two lane road lined with houses.

 

By the mid 1950s property north of the plat was subdivided as a frontage road development, connecting Marianne Country Estates (hearafter referred to MCE) north to Stop Eight Road.  Note the plat died out into open country to the east; there was no northward extension of Webster Street yet. 

 

 

Note that the connection to US 25 via Ashcraft Road never happened.  And the frontage road development never continued south into MCE.

 

After 1955 the US 25 Super Highway was incorporated into the interstate system as I-75, but it didn’t yet recieve true limited access and grade separation, having the distinction of being the only segment of I-75 to have traffic lights & cross traffic.  After the interstate opened commercial development started up on Needmore Road, including a motel.  Yet MCE remained mostly unchanged, as one can see on this 1962 aerial:

 

 

 

One can see light industrial development entering the area along Webster Street.

 

Just a few years later, in 1965, not much has changed.  The motel has expanded a bit, and there is now a small church in the middle of MCE.

 

 

In 1970 construction was underway converting this stretch of I-75 into a true limited access expressway. 

 

And industrial/commercial encroachment was accelerating, with ongoing conversion of  Needmore into a commercial strip.  Development was jumping north of Needmore via the northward extension of Webster Street to Stop Eight, and the expansion of industry along Webster via individual buildings and industrial parks.  One starts to see encroachment into MCE.

 

 

 

1974. A portentious year.  The year of the first big postwar recession and the oil price shock.  But there was continuing industrial/commercial development in this area, between 1970-1974.  During this era manufacturing was in full flight from Dayton, but apparently this was not hitting suburban development, since a small industrial park west  of Webster, under development in 1970,  was substantially built out by 1974.

 

And industry continued to encroach on MCE.

 

 

 

1982.  The era of the early 1980s double-dip recession.  The 1970s was a decade of substantial industrial/commercial encroachment into MCE.  Mini-storage developments appear on the northwest near I-75.  By 1983 industrial development has expanded into the open country north of MCE.

 

 

For an era of economic and industrial stagnation for Dayton this area seemed to sucking up what growth there still was in the region.

 

2000.  The new millennium. Nearly 20 years after the Reagan era, the pattern continued, with ongoing commercial and industrial encroachment.  By this time Needmore Road lost whatever residential character it gad, and the industrial development was filling in empty fields and dead land in MCM, as well as encroaching via ongoing farmette conversions. 

 

 

Marianne Country Estates today.  Aint country no mo

 

 

So lets take a look.  Heading north on Wadsworth from Needmore.  & the intersection of Longines.  One your left, little house and little factory next door.  This will repeat throughout the plat.

 

 

 

Wadsworth and Aschcraft.  Coming up..a closer look at the left (north) side of Ashcraft.

 

 

The central block of Marianne Country Estates….

 

 

Before and after.  The block in 1962 and today.  Some interesting features labeled, but one can do ones own visual comparison on how things changed. 

 

 

And today, with the plat book showing the “obvious” industrial conversions.  There are some not-so-obvious ones, too.

 

 

The north side of Ashcraft, with three examples noted.  How to tranform a farmette….

 

 

 

1. Sliver Building Industrial Park: Take the entire lot and turn it into an industrial site, with hardscaping (gravel or pavment) and Butler buildings. 

 

2. Crankster Gangster:  Let the property go to seed, the house go to ruin, and run a junkyard or some other shady deal.  What you cant see in the thumbnail is the Cat tearing down the house.  Don’t know what this is today.

 

 

3. Blue-Collar Live-Work:  Live in the house in front, have a little machine shop or auto repair business in back (with its own driveway), and pasture your horse in the back forty.

 

 

 

Another approach is to acquire entire ranchettes and portions of adjoining lots and turn them into larger “industrial park sized” properties

 

 

 

Well, that was interesting, huh?  What’s not shown is the Invasion of the Farmette Snatchers, where existing houses remain but become the “front office”, with the industrial stuff happening in a pole barn or prefab in the back.  The front yard becomes a parking lot.

 

Here’s a good one.  Urban Planning for Libertarians:  Look, Ma, no zoning…

 

 

 

…sort of a pink flamingos meets to punch presses thing going on.  1950’s ranch flanked by two job-shops.

 

This  might have been the original idea.  Country Estate.  But behind this is some sort of semi parking area:

 

 

Street scene.  Like any other large lot plat, except ever other building is a factory (or something)

 

 

New Yorkers have those narrow skyscrapers they call sliver buildings.  Marianne Country Estates has horizontal sliver buildings, like this one.  Though narrow, they’re long.  And the aren’t low…(look in the back)

 

 

(for sale by Miller Valentine, per the sign in front)

 

Remember that access point to the old US 25 from the 1940s upthread?  Here it is today.  Looks like it survives via those paired drives.  But this is a neat illustration on how they dealt with the highway frontage…they stuck the houses deep on the lots closer to the freeway(!)… but then as time went on, things were filled in on some of the lots…more houses and prefab stuff.

 

 

..this place is just weird.

 

Washed out google streetview, but this could be one of those WWII emergency housing shacks:

 

 

Longines Symphonette.  This is the last house on Longines Road.  Almost literally, but it is geographically the last on this dead end. Looks nice.  All green and wooded.  It looks like a country estate.  But note the road to the right heading to something in the background

 

 

 

…what’s back there?

 

Why, its some sort of truck/junk thing.  And how about that wasteland next door to the right?

 

 

So, the exurban dream gone dystopian?

 

None of these images work ;(

Oh Well.

Looks like most work now.

 

That is very interesting... I'm always fascinated to what happened to some early suburbia or country estates, popularized by several 1950s-era television programs, such as I Love Lucy...

This was probably a lot rougher than a sitcom suburb if it was considered a problem area ripe for urban (suburban?) renewal.

 

Lucy was, I think, set in a city apartment, which is interesting if you think about it.  It and the Honeymooners were the two urban sitcoms that I recall.

 

There's a subtext to this post, and that is "flight from the city"...but for factories.  Dayton lost a lot of people to suburbia, but it seems it lost a lot of industry, too....not to "the South", but to nearby suburbs.   

One word: CLASSY!!! (not)

Very interesting thread, Jeffery.

 

I always wondered what was up with the war-era housing in the area, and now I know. Interesting, but depressing with the collapse of the whole "community" that was here (I guess its basically just another 'burb, so not so depressing), and very well done on the info and pictures. Great Read!!!!!