Dave Miller's Adventures

Dwyer Station was one of many small settlement names that lived and died by the Miami & Erie Canal. A section of the canal ran through Moraine and West Carrollton.  On the banks of Holes Creek, it was named after the Dwyer Family, one of the area’s early settlers.  Holes Creek is named for the county’s first surgeon Dr. John Hole, a member of the continental Army who moved here in 1797.

Dwyer Station was the site of a grist mill located on the creek and beside the canal. In fact, Dwyer Mill, Alexandersville, and the boat making Danville were all small communities that appear on old 1800’s maps that eventually become the cities of Moraine and West Carrollton.

Dwyer Mill, erected around 1826, was located on the southern border of Moraine and northern West Carrollton where the Interstate 75 northbound exit 47 now is.  Farmers made week-long trips to the mill to have their grain turned into flour, sometimes waiting days for a turn. Farmers carried their grist to the mill on horseback carrying axes, food, gun, and ammo. By 1875 the mill flourished as it combined mill and distillery operations. In the 1930’s farmers brought their corn cobs to have them ground into hominy, wheat to make rye or white bread. Locals enjoyed rye, apple bounces and cherry bounces drinks for 12 cents a glass. 

The mill at Dwyer Station continued to serve the area farmers until it was demolished to make way for the interstate in July 1960.  This southern Moraine area has always been a transportation hub – an aqueduct for the canal, a wharf for boats on the Great Miami River, nearby railroad tracks for locomotives, traction lines for interurban rail cars and lastly, horse, stagecoach and then auto traffic on Dixie Highway.

Sixty plus years ago the area around and across from the Moraine Municipal Building has changed much through the years. Back then Main Street was called Sellars Road. In the 1950’s if you were traveling east on Sellars Road across the old steel bridge (Photo#1) from Miami Shores and had a thirst or were hungry, you could turn right and along the riverbank was the popular and somewhat notorious Bonnie-Lee Café. Built in 1948 locals referred to the bar as Bonnie Lee’s. After the Miami River protective levee was built, the greenspace area from the former Bonnie Lee’s to Dryden Road was turned into ballfields owned by Montgomery County. Athletic Supervisor Fred Armbruster administered county adult softball leagues there for men and women. Locals called the ballfields Stinky Park due to the odors at that time that emanated from the nearby water treatment plant or river. Over time the two ballfields were removed, and the county uses the land for the Western Regional Water Reclamation Facility.

Across the street the Miami Shores Auto Sales was located at the corner of Sellars and Dryden where Proprietor James Hatcher bought and sold used cars (Photo# 2). The site later became a gas station/garage and then today’s Fat Daddy’s Road Hog Convenience Store and Marathon.  Behind that area, in the 1930’s a park and greenspace was located along the river but through the years the Riverview Plat housing subdivision grew to over 55 homes.

Just southeast across Dryden Road, many senior citizens remember the old Quonset hut that sat on the land where the future Moraine Municipal Building was built in 1969

It was a rockin’ and a rollin’ good time at Moraine Fire Station #1 on Viking Lane when local talent Sonny Flaharty and his band performed in front of cheering Moraine youth. Many of our Moraine Senior Citizens reminisce about seeing him perform locally in the late 1950’s and the 1960’s. Thanks to the photo provided by Terry Neuberg who was in the audience, it shows the band (left to right Mike Flaharty, Keith Shadowen, Sonny Flaharty, Richard Shaman) performing at the Fire Station. Back in the early 1960’s, at least once a month the Moraine Fireman’s Association would pull all the fire equipment out of the bays and show movies, have holiday parties or have music concerts for the community.

Young Sonny Flaharty at age eight was singing in taverns for money. By the time the south Dayton native and Fairmont High School student was fourteen he put together his first group, Sonny Flaharty and his Young Americans Band.  Sonny’s group traveled throughout the Midwest, opening for top musical acts such as the Rolling Stones, The Four Seasons, The Crystals and Bobby Vinton.  He recorded “My Baby’s Casual” in 1958 which is in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.  From 1963 to 1967, Sonny joined the Mark V.  The group played numerous club dates and were a regular fixture at Dayton’s “Diamond Club” where they opened for Little Richard, Neil Diamond, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, and the Ohio Players.  They were signed and did records for Phillips Records, Warner Brothers Records and other recording companies.  “Hey Conductor” (one of the biggest hits from Dayton ever) and “You Bring These Tears To Me” released in 1967 are their most well-known songs.  Over the years, Flaharty played in other bands or on his own and recording rockabilly, rock and roll or middle of the road songs.  Sonny’s last album titled “Old Stray Dogs Like Us” was released in 2014. But music is eternal and many Moraine residents remember the good old days when he performed here.

Could the ghost of a legendary gangster be haunting a Moraine Sports Bar?  Did you know that former flashy Chicago gangster George “Bugs” Moran has a Moraine connection due to his 1946 robbery and kidnapping crime?  Moran is forever linked to Chicago’s infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.   Mob Boss Al Capone was the leader of Chicago’s south side gang.  Bugs Moran was the leader of the north side gang.  On February 14, 1929, Capone’s gang (several dressed as police officers) machine gunned Moran’s top seven gangsters in a north side garage (Photo#1).  Moran was late arriving or he would have also been killed.  After the massacre Capone took control of organized crime and bootlegging in Chicago.

Fast forward to 1946 in Dayton, Ohio.  Moran was not the big time crime boss that he once was in Chicago. He needed money and a new city to flex his muscle.  Dayton, Ohio was a promising, blooming, industrial city.  Along with Dayton bootlegger Al Fouts and Moran’s partner Virgil Summers, the trio of killers followed Silas Tavern bar manager Paul Kurpe, Jr. from Winters Bank on West Third Street.  They forced Kurpe’s car off the road, kidnapped him at gunpoint and drove him to a wooded area on Vance Road (Photo#2).  Kurpe was led into the woods, bound hand and foot and robbed of the $10,000 bank withdrawal that he was going to use to cash pay checks for workers at the nearby Frigidaire Plant in Moraine.  Eventually, he got free and called police.

Within two weeks all three criminals were apprehended by Dayton Police (Photo#3) and the FBI with their trial being a big media sensation in Dayton.  All three were convicted to 20 years in prison (Photo #4) where Bugs Moran eventually died in prison of cancer.  The end of the story?  Not quite. 

Fast forward to 2017 in Moraine.  City of Moraine employees Dave Miller & Jim Hall received a call from Upper Deck Tavern Manager Tammy Brackney.  Brackney stated that during the past several years, Upper Deck (located at the corner of Blanchard Ave. and Springboro in Moraine) has had many paranormal claims, from waitresses feeling cold spots, hearing voices, having their hair pulled, hearing chairs being moved and footsteps.   One female employee in the basement saw a full body apparition of a man with the meat slicer (Photo#5) being clearly seen through and behind him.  The man wore 1930’s style clothing and a gangster style hat.  Tammy was closing the sports bar one night, opened a storage room door & saw a shadow figure of a man.  Since the building was locked at the time, a search revealed no other person in the bar.  Brackney speculated that the ghost may be Roy Rogers (Photo#6), a patron who was killed in a homicide at the bar in the late 1960’s or a deceased man who once rented an apartment upstairs.

During historical research, Miller spoke with retired Moraine police officers and detectives who had worked the Rogers homicide case and found an incredible fact.  Upper Deck Tavern had several different prior names through the years – John Bulls Restaurant & Sports Bar, The Lighthouse and Silas Tavern.  Could the gangster looking apparition in the basement be the ghost of Bugs Moran who pulling his last big robbery heist 80 years earlier on the manager of this bar?

Hall, Miller, Brackney and Carin Bell (Photo #7) did a night ghost hunt investigation at Upper Deck on October 4, 2017.  Around 2am, a loud slam was heard near the kitchen entrance.  Upon investigation, both swinging doors were latched open and could not have made the slamming sound.  Hall caught several elevated EMF readings on the first floor but debunked them as excessive wiring.  The investigators along with local TV personality & writer Jim Bucher (Photo #8) and his two-man crew conducted a second investigation live on Facebook on October 18^th.  Tape recorders caught second floor doors being opened and closed while investigators were in the basement.  Future investigations will be conducted. Today, few people realize that one of the nation’s top gangsters who battled Al Capone during Chicago’s bloody bootlegging era pulled his final kidnapping crime by robbing a Moraine, Ohio tavern manager.  So, it’s funny to think that when patrons visited Upper Deck Tavern and sat eating a delicious burger, they may have not realized that “Bugs” may have not left the building! Recently, Upper Deck Tavern was sold and is being renovated to possibly become a Mexican restaurant. I have heard from a source that the new renovation has stirred up some strange occurrences. I hope that we can return and investigate there soon to see if we can find any evidence of paranormal activity.