Explores Dayton's retail, industrial, entertainment, and residential sites and how they have changed over time.

Many of the places that helped make Dayton a center of innovation were lost to history, while others survived and adapted, representing the city's spirit of revitalization. Some of the city's distinctive and significant structures, such as Steele High School and the Callahan Building, were demolished, while others, including the Arcade and Centre City Building, saw hard times but now await redevelopment. Entire neighborhoods, such as the Haymarket, and commercial districts, such as West Fifth Street, vanished and show no traces of their past. Others, including the popular Oregon District, narrowly escaped the wrecking ball. From the Wright Brothers Factory to the park that hosted the first NFL game, Andrew Walsh explores the diverse selection of retail, industrial, entertainment and residential sites from Dayton's disappearing legacy.

Series statement from publisher's website.

Examines underlying factors behind the rise and decline of Dayton, Ohio, an archetypal Rust-Belt city, ultimately proposing a plan for revival.

The Miami Valley of Ohio has a rich but gruesome and bloody history. In Dayton, Christine Kett murdered her daughter and confessed seventeen years later on her deathbed. William Fogwell of Beavercreek clung to life long enough to name his killer before he died. Joshua Monroe, a Yellow Springs man, killed his lover--also his sister-in-law--in a jealous rage. Reputed serial killer Oliver Crook Haugh was accused of murdering multiple women over several years, but he was ultimately convicted of killing "only" his family. Author and founder of the Dayton Unknown history blog Sara Kaushal uncovers the violent and horrific crimes of the past.

Beginning on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, torrential rains across the Midwest dropped a record three months of rainfall in four days. Floodwaters funneled down Ohio's Miami Valley into the heart of the vibrant industrial city of Dayton. Levees burst, houses were swept away, and downtown was gutted by fires blazing from broken gas mains. At the end of Easter week, nearly 100 Daytonians had perished, and tens of thousands more were left homeless and destitute--a tragedy that made banner headlines in newspapers nationwide. Out of Dayton's ashes and mud rose fierce public resolve never again to suffer such destruction. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 reproduces some 200 astounding photographs from the collections of the Dayton Metro Library and the Miami Conservancy District and the archives of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton History. They portray the terrifying flood, monumental destruction, heroic rescues, and compassionate leadership that occurred during the disaster and its immediate aftermath, as well as the pioneering flood-control engineering that has kept Dayton safe ever since.

In 1789, plans were made for a settlement near the mouth of what is now known as Mad River. The proposed name for the site was Venice, and the river was to be named Tiber. The deed was executed and recorded, and the village of Venice was laid out on paper. But Indian troubles and some misunderstandings with the landowner and the government led to the abandonment of the project. Fortunately, a treaty was signed with the Indians six years later, and in 1796, three parties set out from Cincinnati for the newly-named settlement of Dayton. One hundred years later, Dayton was a modern city, its citizens open to innovative ideas, but still proud of their past. The Main Street Bridge was one of the first concrete bridges in the United States. Cash registers, invented in Dayton, were in stores throughout the world. Yet time was taken to save the city's oldest structure, Newcom Tavern, and place it near where the first settlers of Dayton had come ashore. In 2014, Newcom Tavern underwent a $100,000 exterior renovation. As it was in 1896, so it is today; a symbol of how, from such humble beginnings, a great city can rise.