The heat wave was deadly for many Ohioans because it happened before air conditioning was commonly used in homes.
Many people were forced to stay inside during the day and sleep outside at night to find relief from the scorching temperatures, which at one point reached 105 degrees in Dayton.
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For this edition of Vintage Dayton, we go into the archives for a look back on the heat wave and how Daytonians dealt with the extreme weather event.
More on Dayton history
• Xenia tornado timeline: How the deadly 1974 twister tore through the city
• ‘A fearfully grand spectacle’: The night an entire Dayton city block was consumed in flames
• Camp Kern: The history of Ohio’s largest YMCA camp and summer nostalgia since 1910
• -25 during the ‘Siberian Express’: Do you remember Dayton’s historic winter storm of January 1994?
Did you know?
Here are a few great Dayton history facts we’ve learned from our stories:
• The massive cross on the University of Dayton’s Chapel of the Immaculate Conception is 7 feet, 4 inches tall from the base to the top of the cross, with the top of the cross reaching 95 feet from the ground.
• When Wiley’s Comedy Club opened in Dayton in 1982, there were only 30 other comedy clubs in the country.
• The Miami Valley College, a Quaker institution in Springboro, opened in 1871 on a 60-acre farm a half mile east of the intersection of State routes 73 and 741.
• Daytonian Charles Daniels, once considered the world’s greatest swimmer, invented what is now known as the freestyle breast stroke.
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Thank you for reading.