Dayton trailblazer Lt. Col. Charity Adams Earley inspiration for acclaimed movie
Charity Adams Earley laid the groundwork for today’s integrated military as the top-ranking Black woman officer and paved the way for Black women in service.
She is featured in the movie “The Six Triple Eight,” so we wanted to share more of the story of this Dayton legend.
Bill Stepp: Meet Dayton’s drag-racing gangster who slipped past case after case for decades
William Elias “Bill” Stepp was one of the most famous gangsters the Miami Valley has ever known.
Stepp had an amazing record for getting on probation and getting in trouble while on it. His life story is one of the most unique in area history.
The Boonshoft: Dayton’s natural history museum roots stretch to 1893 and a room in the downtown library
The museum’s roots trace back more than 100 years, with several dramatic changes along the way. Here is a look at the history of what is now known as “The Boonshoft.”
Smales Pretzels, a delicious five-generation family business with many twists and turns in Dayton
The business can trace its roots back more than a century, and has maintained a loyal following of customers that consider it a Dayton tradition.
Here is a look at how the bakery was handed down through five generations and what kept the family going all these years.
John McAfee and the 200th anniversary of Dayton’s first public execution
John McAfee was hanged on the afternoon of March 28, 1825.
He was put to death on a new gallows, which was one of the first of its kind to be erected in the state. Ohio had only been a state for 21 years at that point.
Requarth Lumber Company: A Dayton journey through 165 years and 5 family generations
Requarth is famed locally for, among other reasons, having sold wood to the Wright brothers for their early airplanes.
Here is more about the company’s five-generation, 165-year history.
‘I knew it was something serious’: Philip Zenni, the only Dayton-bound survivor of the Titanic disaster
It was the early-morning hours of April 15, 1912, and a lifeboat was being lowered from the doomed Titanic barely a third full.
The only Dayton-bound passenger — a 22-year-old Lebanese man named Philip Zenni — tried to jump aboard but was held back by an officer with a gun yelling, “Ladies and children first!”
The Sloopy’s murders: 2 employees were killed with a claw hammer in a 1994 case that involved ‘the devil’
Edmund Earl Emerick III was convicted of murder in the March 1994 slayings of Robert Knapke and Frank Ferraro at Sloopy’s Bar in the Oregon District.
We went into the Dayton Daily News archives to find more details about the slayings.
How Dayton inventor Joseph Desch became a World War II code-breaking hero
Joseph R. Desch was born and raised in the Edgemont neighborhood and crossed the old Stewart Street Bridge daily on his way to classes at the University of Dayton.
Desch eventually became famous for his groundbreaking work on U.S. Navy bombes — the machines that broke Nazi German four-rotor enigma naval codes and helped to bring an end to World War II.
Dayton-made MacGregor golf clubs once dominated the world’s fairways: Their history back to 1829
In the early 1900s, the Crawford, McGregor & Canby Company of Dayton was the world’s largest producer of golf clubs, and its MacGregor line became the biggest name in golf for over 40 years.
Israel Ludlow: Meet the namesake of Ludlow Street downtown and the man who coined ‘Dayton’
The City of Dayton might have a different name if not for Israel Ludlow.
Ludlow led a survey party of the territory and then platted the town in 1795. Ludlow named the town after Jonathan Dayton, who never visited the settlement.
The huge highway project that never happened: The Greater Dayton Beltway
Many major cities have a highway loop that circles the downtown area and connects with a main highway that runs straight through town.
Dayton was on its way to having its own loop when the eastern by-pass of Dayton, I-675, was completed in the late 1980s. In 1993, plans were formed for the completion of what was known as the Greater Dayton Beltway, but those plans never happened.
Bertha Comstock: Remembering Dayton’s first female newspaper reporter
Bertha Comstock is considered Dayton’s first female newspaper reporter.
Comstock served on the Dayton Journal staff from the mid-1890s until 1907, covering a variety of assignments.
The history of ‘Studio Wrestling’: Dayton was the first city to hold the 1950s events in local TV studios
Channel 2 was the first television station in the nation to originate live studio wrestling, back in 1950.
Hustler founder Larry Flynt started his empire with a Dayton bar: How it grew from there
Larry Flynt was the publisher of Hustler magazine and chairman of an adult entertainment empire that also included television and video services and retail stores.
50 Years Ago: Evel Knievel soared over 14 buses at Kings Island
It’s been 50 years since world famous daredevil Evel Knievel successfully jumped over 14 Greyhound buses with his motorcycle in the Kings Island parking lot.
The event was nationally televised by ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” and earned the highest rating in the show’s history.
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