Each week, we’ll being you a selection of notable stories that happened this week in Dayton history, chronicled by the same newspaper that continues to serve the community today.
Here are some headlines from the week of Jan. 18-24, 1976.
Jan. 18, 1976: 60 rebuild house for disabled man
John Payne of Tipp City lost just about everything he owned when his home was burned out by a fire in 1976.
Everything, that is, except his friends, who set out to rebuild the place.
“John didn’t have a penny’s worth of fire insurance and he’s disabled, so that’s when you need friends,” said Robert Penrod at the time. Penrod was one of Payne’s fellow workers at the A.O. Smith Co. in Tipp City.
Penrod, a part-time licensed contractor, said that about 60 volunteers, most of them A.O. Smith employees, had pledged to rebuild the single-story frame home, which was burned out in a fire which began with a faulty bedroom lamp.
Payne, who lived in the home, at 380 N. Sixth St., with his wife, Agnes, and two daughters, was on sick leave from Smith.
“I talked to about 15 suppliers from all over the area about free materials and haven’t got any no’s yet,” said Penrod. “A Dayton caterer even gave us some food for lunch.”
Penrod estimated that the rebuilding job would cost about $10,000. He said he would like to “have John back in the place in about a month.”
Jan. 18, 1976: Third Upper Krust to open
Upper Krust, the local overstuffed sandwich business started by Jack Rouda, had joined the migration south. A new restaurant, the third Upper Krust, was getting ready to open in Washington Square shopping center at 6087 Far Hills Ave. in Centerville.
The other two were at 1919 N. Main St. and at 142 N. Main. The downtown restaurant was relocated in 1975 from the Courthouse Square urban renewal area.
The new Upper Krust, which was to be next door to the Washington Square Cinema, was managed by Douglas F. Gowdy, a Dayton real estate businessman who was part owner of the Centerville unit.
The 102-seat restaurant had all of the menu and decorative features of the other two. Unlike the downtown restaurant, however, it didn’t have a counter — only tables and booths.
An added feature was an old-fashioned gazebo in the middle of the restaurant where customers were able to hang their coats. The shopping center space was finished with oak floors and beaded-board paneling and decorated with globe bulbs and red chandeliers.
Limited by the overall architectural scheme of the shopping center, yellow spotlights instead of yellow paint, were used on the exterior to achieve the Upper Krust look.
“An 1890s New York delicatessen is the image we try to shoot for,” said Gowdy at the time.
Jan. 18, 1976: Roller skating rinks popular as a wholesome atmosphere for young people
“Roller skating has a new image ... it’s desirable ... it’s health ... it’s the ‘now’ sport for all ages,” said Margaret Miller Elter, the president of The Great Skate, located just east of the Dayton Mall, in 1976.
The Great Skate operated 365 days a year and had been termed the country club for kids.
“We draw from schools in Miamisburg, Centerville, Springboro, Franklin, Middletown,” said Elter.
Updated, colorful roller rinks were popular in every section of the greater Dayton area. In Kettering, it was Skateworld, 1601 E. David Rd.
The Beaver Vu Skatearena, on North Fairfield Road, had been operating since 1964.
In 1976, the American style high quality boot skates were manufactured in Dayton.
Back in the late ’30s and early ’40s, Shirley Snyder was competing in roller-skating events, winning five national titles. Her father, then a tool and die maker at Frigidaire, made a special steel plate for her skates. From this beginning the Douglas Snyder Roller Skate Co., 1122 Titus Ave., was born.
Jan. 21, 1976: ‘Bubble’ kids in YWCA program lose fear of water
At the swimming pool inside the YWCA at 141 W. Third St. in 1976, 27-month-old Mike Osborne wanted to do just one thing: Get out of the water.
That was so he could immediately get back in, jumping from the side into the waiting arms of his mother, Doris, for one splashdown after another.
Mike was the “veteran” in the YWCA’s then class of “Bubble Babies,” the name they used for children six months to 3 years old who came once a week to the pool.
It is not exactly swimming that they learned from instructor Sandy Baber, and to the casual passerby, it might not even have looked like fun.
“He likes it really well,” said one mother. “I think it’s worth it. If you wait until they’re 3 or 4, they may already be afraid of the water.”
Jan. 21, 1976: Students spend day sketching for Wright replica
“It’s amazing that they flew this thing,” said Dan Minnix as he sprawled out on the floor of the Air Force Museum beneath the tail of the 1911 Wright brothers Model B Flyer in 1976.
Minnix and a dozen other students of Fairmont East and West high schools spent a day at the museum, sketching and taking detailed measurements of the 65-year-old plane as part of a local effort to build a flying replica of it.
Drafting classes of the two schools were drawing up a complete set of plans for the plane — something the Wright brothers apparently failed to provide when they sold the original model to the government.
“We’re clearing up a few details,” said Minnix, student foreman of the Bicentennial project.
“I’m in charge of the tail section,” Minnix said, showing a sketch of metal fasteners the Wrights used to hold two slim pieces of wood together at the rear of the plane.
Charles A. Dempsey, originator of the community project, said plans called for the full-sized plane to be built in time for Dayton Air Fair ’76 to be held at Cox Municipal Airport.
Jan. 22, 1976: Solar energy a hot topic at Miami University
If each of the 250 people who signed up for two solar energy seminars in 1976 would have actually built such a heating system, it would have been nearly double the number of sun-heated homes in the United States at the time, according to the workshop teacher, Associate Professor Fuller Moore.
Moore taught architecture at Miami U. and lived in a sun-heated home that he designed himself. He said he expected moderate interest in the one-day workshops, but nothing like the flood of applicants he received.
He attributed the interest partly to the “back to nature” inclination he felt was popular at the time.
Moore said he was particularly encouraged because a large number of contractors and builders seemed interested in the natural-energy way of heating a home.
“Solar energy is moving out of the cottage craft and toward a real industry,” Moore said.
He said it cost about $5,000 to adapt his new home to solar heat, which had a backup electrical heating system.
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