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

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.

"Explore the history of the Wright brothers in Dayton, Ohio, and their famous flight factory"--

The Land Across the River tells the story of the first 150 years of history of the West Side of Dayton - from 1799 to just a little past Orville Wright's death in 1948. This book is a little different than what I normally write. There are no chapters, but instead events flow more or less in chronological order. Notes are included at the end of the book that will allow readers to know where they can find more information. A book with ten times as many pages as this one could have been written and would still barely have touched the amazing history of the West Side. Because of this, much of the focus is on the area now known as the West Third Street Historic District, where most of the action took place during the time period this book covers. It tells about the personalities of some of the people who lived there: like the bicycle makers who also built and flew the first practical airplane, the first black poet to garner national acclaim, the patent medicine makers who claimed to cure almost every disease known to man and the publisher who was known to reprint books without regard as to whether it was legal for him to do so. It speaks of the West Side Colony, made up of workers from Hungary and Rumania who were recruited to work at the Dayton Malleable Iron Company. All this, and much more, will be found inside. I hope you are surprised as much as I was at how fascinating the history of the West Side is.