Dayton Engineers Club celebrates centennial of its historic building, opens lunches to ‘prospective members’

The Engineers Club of Dayton , which is celebrating the centennial of its downtown Dayton building at a private event this Saturday, June 9, has opened up its lunches to non-members, who can get a powerful glimpse of Dayton's rich history on their way through the club to the restaurant.

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The Engineers Club is located at 110 E. Monument Ave. in downtown Dayton. It was founded by two of Dayton’s most revered citizens, Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds, in 1914, in part to establish a meeting place for engineers and others brought to Dayton for flood-control work that followed Dayton’s 1913 flood. Orville Wright helped to dedicate the Monument Avenue facility in February 1918. In fact, a plaque over one of the small, out-of-the-way restaurant tables, tucked in behind a partition to give him his much-valued privacy, marks the table that was Orville’s favorite.

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The Engineers Club of Dayton has offered lunch to members since its inception, and last year, it opened its lunches to those who the club refers to as “prospective members.”

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“Most people think we’re just a museum, but that’s not the case,” Darbie Kincaid, executive director of the Engineers Club, said in a 2017 interview.

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Kincaid said despite the club’s name, members don’t have to be engineers. The 2017 roster of 443 members — not including spouses — includes more CEOs than engineers, along with dozens of small-business owners, doctors, lawyers and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base employees.

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The club makes a powerful impression to visitors no matter what their profession. On prominent display behind glass are the Wright Brothers’ third engine (the first is in the Smithsonian, the second at Carillon Park) and one of the first prototype cash registers from the National Cash Register Company (NCR).

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Kincaid said she is still in awe of the history of the place where she has worked for 15 years.

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“To me, it’s a privilege to work here — a privilege to come into this building every day,” she said. “Even today, each time I take people on tours, I see and discover new things about it.”

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