Category: Moraine Historical Markers & Moraine History

The June 23, 1927, Dayton Daily News headlines blared “Cremation is Attraction”.  Despite the fact that famous aviator Col. Charles A. Lindburgh was in town and the interest in Dayton surrounded him, more than 25,000 people still attended the “cremation” of obsolete rolling stock of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway Company at Moraine City.

As the company burned the old Hills & Dales trolley cars, it celebrated at the same time the birth of a new child. The C, H & D Railway suddenly rose from being “one of the poorest” interurban traction lines in the country to one of the leading.

At the company’s new trolley barns and offices on Springboro Pike in Moraine City next to the Moraine Delco Plant, C, H & D Railway hosted an elaborate dinner for 450 people. This included city officials from all towns in the Miami Valley, newspaper reporters, YMCA officials, and leading railway men from across the country. Company speakers touted improvements such as the new modern generator station, new stronger rails along the track, new trolley car repair shops and new interurban trolley cars. C, H & D President Tom Conway stated that the electric interurban system’s trolleys moved over nine million passengers and 91,000 pounds of freight in 1926 with greater increases expected in 1928. The new trolley cars will reduce the 54-mile travel time from Dayton to Cincinnati by 15 minutes. The new Tuscan red trolleys were attractive, sturdier, more comfortable for passengers and would be on display in two days. Each trolley car seated 46 people in double-bucket leather upholstered seats.

Celebrating the company’s rehabilitation and rebirth, Conway stated that with the great industrial expansion in the Dayton area such as the new Frigidaire plant in Moraine, the trolley line expects to serve those workers and the population growth of the area.

Following the dinner, the large delegation boarded special traction line trolley cars and headed to a fireworks demonstration – planned to herald the company’s new improvements with an event dramatic enough to stir the imagination of the press and public alike. As the guests and the crowd of 25,000 assembled in a field just south of where today’s Moraine Walmart is located, C, H & D gave away free popcorn and ice cream and hired stunt pilots from Wright Field to put on an aerobatic show while a band played music. The Big Show aka The Big Cremation – bodies of the seven old wooden traction cars were placed end to end in a field in Moraine and given the torch. The cars were filled with kindling soaked in gasolene. The blaze could be seen for miles and burned over an hour.  C, H & D management’s symbolism literally reduced the past to ashes and started anew with new trolley cars. It was quite the 1920’s marketing ploy.

The C, H & D electric interurban railway was absorbed in 1930 into the new Cincinnati and Lake Erie interurban railway. The C, H & D company building on Springboro Pike across from Voltz’s Root Beer Stand was demolished in 1999 by General Motors.

Many Moraine restaurants benefited greatly by establishing their location near the large Frigidaire plant (and future General Motors Assembly Plant) and marketing their menu and attractions to entice factory workers to stop in for breakfast or lunch and after work.

This one small building at the southwest corner of Blanchard Ave. and Springboro Pike across from the former Upper Deck Tavern has quite the history. The restaurant is called Moraine Lunch & Night Club which opened its doors in 1933. 

Moraine Lunch opened at 5:30am and closed at 2:30am and offered both American and Hungarian cuisine such as cabbage rolls, chicken or veal paprikas. Moraine Lunch offered food, drinks and dancing, marketing itself as a popular late evening attraction not just to Frigidaire workers but to the entire Miami Valley. The original 2-story wood-frame building burnt down in 1958.  A new stucco-brick building was built in 1961 and opened as The Vanaheim.  The Vanaheim restaurant offered good food and holiday dances but never achieved the success as Moraine Lunch.

Next door to Moraine Lunch was the infamous Moraine Smokery which did not offer any food nor smoke products and was raided for bookmaking horse races. Across the street was Silas Tavern which eventually became The Lighthouse which offered beer and light food for plant workers but not to the scale of Moraine Lunch & Night Club. Silas Tavern will always be remembered as its bar manager was robbed of $10,000 at gunpoint by famous gangster Bugs Moran in 1946.  Moran’s gang was gunned down in Chicago a decade earlier by Al Cappone which was called “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”.

Although none of these restaurants exist today, they were important businesses in Moraine back in their time to feed the over 3,500 workers at the Frigidaire plant.

Peter Hetzel was a carpenter and manufactured fanning mills, hand-looms, and furniture. He was a co-founder of Zion Memorial Church on South Dixie Drive.  His wooden frame farmhouse was built in 1817 and was located a mile east of the church just off West Stroop Road.

For about a year while the farmhouse was being built, Hetzel, his wife Catherine and their five children lived on site in a very small, white wooden frame building called a summer kitchen.  A summer kitchen was used to keep heat out of the main house during hot weather. Pots were suspended from a crane for cooking or heating water.  A bake oven was used to make bread, pies, and other baked goods. The Hetzel Summer Kitchen Building still exists today at Carillon Historical Park. The building is so small that you are amazed that seven people had enough space to live in it.

Outside beside the summer kitchen building is a garden where park staff grow vegetables that the Hetzels would have planted including a special plant called broomcorn. Broomcorn is not edible but once dried, its stiffer bristles are used to make brooms for dry sweeping only. 

Here are four unique facts that you may not have known about Moraine.

(1)The city name Moraine is very rare. There are no other towns named just “Moraine” in the United States and only one other named Moraine in this part of the world – Moraine, Haiti.

On this Caribbean Island, Moraine is located in the region Centre of Haiti, 31 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, the capital of this Republic.  One source refers to Moraine as a rural populated area of around 5,000 people with everyone sharing one water source. Thousands of Moraine residents came to a single shallow spring of dirty water trying not to disturb the mud in the spring and dirty the water. During the dry season all Moraine people had to painstakingly preserve what little water they had. Fortunately, a religious based organization raised money and a water well was drilled providing the community (SEE PHOTO #1 & #2) with fresh drinking water.

(2)Moraine is the home of the longest running same day EAA Fly-In in the United States. That’s right, the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) Chapter 48 at the Moraine Airpark on Clearview Road holds the Sunday Funday Fly-In on the first Sunday in May.  The Fly-In began way back in 1959. Festivities consist of aviation booths, food & refreshments, and hundreds of vintage, experimental and regular airplanes on display. Hope to see you Sunday, May 4, 2025 for the 66th annual Fly-In!

(3)Moraine is home to one of the first seaplane bases in the world. Orville Wright began experimenting with adding pontoons to his regular airplane and testing them in 1912 and 1914 at the bend of the Miami River in Moraine and West Carrollton. He made over 100 flights. The seaplane base was on the riverbank on the Moraine side of the river near the east end of the Moraine Airpark’s runway. There is still debate whether the credit of the very first seaplane base in America goes to the Wright Brothers or to Glenn Curtiss of New York who began a seaplane base at about the same time.

(4) Lastly, Santa Claus almost lost his life back on December 24, 1904, at the small school at the Moraine Pinnacles. The children had assembled, and the Christmas program was almost finished when Santa (a local teacher) appeared. As he spoke to the children, he stood too close to a lighted candle and the cotton in his costume caught fire. In moments Santa was ablaze. Fortunately, billions of kids are still happy today and Moraine did not have the distinction as being the place where Santa Claus died. A teacher and others quickly tore off Santa’s costume. Santa completed his talk before the kids although slightly disheveled in appearance with his real hair singed. The school children quickly forgot about the fire and Santa as they received gifts and treats.

The Miami & Erie Canal was one of the greatest accomplishments of the 1800’s as it linked Lake Erie to the North with the Ohio River to the South. It ferried settlers, livestock and supplies into the new growing state of Ohio. The first canal trip in our area was in December 1828 as a party of Daytonians aboard the packet boat “Alpha” journeyed through Moraine to Holes Creek. Eventually, a 24-hour trip from Dayton to Cincinnati, the boat made a stop at 9am and 2pm to allow passengers to get off, build a fire on the canal bank and cook a meal. The canal meant prosperity for entrepreneurs. You could work on the canal as boatman or toll collector, locate stores or businesses near the canal, or acquire rights to power generated by the canal locks for use in operating gristmills or sawmills.

In the 1880’s, the canal was still a popular recreational destination for a family out for a Sunday excursion where they sat on the top of the canal boat deck and enjoyed the scenery. The development of train transportation and the catastrophic Great Dayton Flood of 1913 put canal boat trafficking and canals out of business.

Captain Billy Combs was a spry 82 year old when he brought the last boat up the canal in 1909 through Moraine.  The canal boat was called the “De Camp Statler”.  Combs was hauling a big load of gravel from Newport on the last run on record from a payload on the upper canal. Harry Newton, whose father had brought the canal boat over from Wabash was on the last run with Combs. Photo #1 shows Billy pointing to the waterway that he fondly called “his canal”

Is there any visual evidence today remaining of the canal in Moraine? Not much. A canal lock still exists at Carillon Park and the canal winded around Calvary Ridge into Moraine from the North and follows Arbor Blvd. and Dryden Road south.  You can see the canal contour of land at Dryden & Krieitzer Road.  The old canal toll booth was a log cabin that still exists inside of the business at the corner of Kreitzer Road and Springboro West (Photo #2). 

The Moraine Historical Marker at the corner of Dryden Road and East River Road is the spot where Canal Lock #23 was located, lowering the water level going south. Lastly, where Dryden Road dead ends into Central Avenue/Dixie Drive, the canal turned right or southwest and headed into West Carrollton (see Photo#3).  Although not much remains today of this major transportation route that brought pioneers to Moraine, its history remains a vital part of how early Moraine was developed.

Take another nostalgic drive down memory lane as we cruise south down Kettering Blvd. in Moraine. Sixty years ago, it looked a lot different than today.  Just north of Stroop Road was a government-built WWII 500-unit housing project for Frigidaire workers coined Moraine Fields/Cardboard City which eventually became the Kettering Municipal Court Building and later the Kettering-Moraine Museum.  Across the street was a bar, barber shop and a grocery store with many names through the years from Stragand’s IGA Foodliner to Al & Joe’s Foodtown to Hatchers Food Center.

South of Stroop Road on the east side of Kettering Blvd. across from Frigidaire were mainly restaurants feeding the factory workers and residents.  At the corner was Dr. Higley’s Veterinarian office, followed by Angelina’s Pizza, the areas first McDonalds Restaurant, Arthur Treachers Fish and Chips, Robert Hall Clothing Store (which later became Hipple Cancer Research Center in 1977 and then Days Sales & Service Bike & Lawn Mower Shop) and Angelo’s Drive-In.

Angelina’s Pizza was run by Joe Marks and was known for the best pizza, great subs (the Gondola Sub and The Frigidaire Special were favorites), torpedo and cheesesteak sandwiches.  The McDonalds opened in 1962, a white enameled building with lighted golden arches. Customers would walk up to windows, place their order, and then eat their food in the car. I remember in 1964 the hamburgers cost only 15 cents each. Eventually indoor dining was added.

Next door, Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips restaurant offered fried fish, chips, hush puppies and shrimp boats. Lastly, next to Robert Halls at the corner of Kettering Blvd. and Marconi Avenue was Angelo’s Drive-in. Built in 1954, Angelo’s patrons could eat inside at tables with juke box controllers or park in one of 23 parking spaces under a long car port and order from the microphone box while sitting in your car. A car hop waitress would bring the food order out and collect the money. Hot rods cruised Angelo’s often. Locals remember seeing the famous Golden Sahara Custom Car and Indy 500 driver Salt Walther in his T Bucket Roadster. Known for their famous Chickie in a Quickie plate (deep fried chicken, fries, coleslaw and a hot roll for $1.00), this busy local hangout also served the Chubby Boy double decker hamburger,and the Jumbo Shrimp Plate. Angelo’s eventually became Grannies 4200 Place Restaurant and then just 4200 Place.

The area where Main Street meets Springboro Pike/State Route 741 looked vastly different 60 years ago.

 Across from WDTN Channel 2, this large building had businesses that changed hands multiple times through the years. This building at 4650 North Springboro Pike, now occupied by AAA and Kastle Electric, was once a popular Goldmans, Bargain Barn and then Moraine K-Mart (often referred to as the “Moraine Mall). This was an important place for Moraine residents to shop before malls and big box stores came into existence. On the west end of the building was the Donuts Inc. Shop, home of 52 varieties of donuts and the world’s greatest coffee. Local bluegrass and country jam sessions were held in the parking lot every Saturday night. Also, in the parking lot was Wishy-Washy Car Wash.

Next door at 4725 Springboro Pike, where Kyle’s Auto Mall now exists, former businesses that occupied that location were Goofy Golf, a Noble Romans Pizza restaurant, an Arnold Palmer Putt-Putt, a Burger Chef, and a pawn shop. Next door where the Waffle House is now, there was once a gas station, auto repair garage and long ago a Frost Top Root Beer stand.

Senior citizens will nostalgically remember that across the street at the western corner of Main Street and Springboro Pike in the 1950’s & 1960’s was the Pottery Barn, consisting of two old circa 1930 interurban railroad/trolley cars. The business sold pottery, colored glass globes, bird fountain stands, cement statues and lawn ornaments. 

Many businesses have come and gone through the years, but their memories remain.

On display at the Waco Air Museum in Troy, Ohio is a 1934 Waco UMF-3 biplane formerly flown by Moraine’s Harold Johnson, the “Flying Mayor of Moraine”. Harold was well known in the aviation field as he was a past-President of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, past FBO of Moraine Airpark and past Mayor of Moraine from 1976 to 1993. Johnson passed away at age 85 in 2011.

There were only 18 of this specific model of Waco biplane built in 1934-35 and each were sold for $6,530. In 1960, Johnson and Glen Thomas purchased the plane and completely restored it to its former glory. Harold used the Waco for the next 65 years flying air shows across the Midwest. The red Waco was a permanent fixture at Moraine Airpark and at Moraine Airshows. The Waco’s powerful 210 horsepower engine enabled Johnson to perform rolls, loops, stall turns (hammerheads), tailslides and other aerobatic maneuvers.

Johnson offered public biplane rides which your author and my wife took advantage of years ago. The ride was a surprise birthday gift for her and boy did Harold make it memorable. We were seated in the open-air cockpit in front of Harold’s cockpit and strapped in by one thin seatbelt across our laps. Since Harold knew me, he gave us more than an ordinary ride by doing a couple loops, a death spiral over downtown Dayton and barnstorming just above tree top level – memories we will never forget, especially my wife who had eaten a big breakfast before this stomach-churning flight.

This Waco plane was part of two World Records. Johnson set the record for the longest continuous airshow flights as he flew at the Kings Island Amusement Park seven nights a week for seven straight years – that’s 2,557 shows.

Johnson’s Waco plane also has the most flight time than any other Waco in existence with over 14,000 hours in the air. This 1934 Waco is currently on loan to the museum by the family of Harold Johnson.

William Werthner was a high school teacher in Dayton from 1875 to 1925 and taught several subjects including botany.  Werthner would bring his students here to the Pinnacle cliffs in Moraine where there was an abundance of trees, plants, wildflowers, and several unique, tall, other-worldly spiral shapes made from hard clay.  The site was a popular picnic location back in the late 1800’s with a beautiful view looking south of a small pond, the Miami River and green pastures.

In his 1886-1887 high school botany class were two Dayton students that would go on to international fame – poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and airplane co-inventor and aviator Orville Wright. In their sketchbooks from several trips to the Pinnacles, they drew sketches of tree branches with buds (red maple, buckeye, beech, willow, and ash), tree seeds (sycamore and hickory) and flowers (lilac, tulip, and red clover). Each drawing was very detailed and in addition included a cross-section sketch. In the sketchbook the student also had to add a description, size, form, and anything peculiar about it.  A few sketches are shown below.

In May 1887, a notation in Orville’s sketchbook stated that the class went to a nearby spring (a natural water spring) at the Pinnacles to drink and eat lunch. On the way the first flower that they found was the golden ragwort. 

The information above is gleaned from a small historical sketch booklet titled “Pinnacles”, written by local author Timothy Gaffney in cooperation with Casey Huegel, Museum Technician at the National Park Service.

On September 23, 2023, members of the Wright Seaplane Base Inc. dedicated a ¼ scale model of the 1913 Wright Model G Aeroboat Sculpture.  The sculpture sits atop a twenty-foot pole next to the bicycle path along Main Street in Moraine. 

     The Wright Seaplane Base, Inc., is a group of people dedicated to keeping the memory of the Wright Brothers alive, specifically Orville Wright’s involvement from 1912 to 1914 in the development and testing of the aeroboat or seaplane.

    The 1913 Aeroboat was designed by Wright Company chief engineer Grover Loening under the supervision of Orville Wright. The aeroboats were continuously tested and improved during the two-year period as over 100 test flights were made along the Miami River in Moraine and West Carrollton. Depending on prevailing winds, Orville Wright could choose to take off or land north-south or east-west thanks to the 90-degree bend in the river. The original Model G had a 38-foot span, 28 feet length, and weighed between 1,200 and 1,300 pounds.  With its 18-foot boat-like hull, it was the first product of the Wright Company to have an enclosed cockpit. The aircraft flew up to 60 miles per hour.

     The dedication was hosted by Harold Robinson, President of WSBI and Dave Miller, President Elect of WSBI. On behalf of the City of Moraine, Moraine Mayor Teri Murphy accepted the gift of the aeroboat sculpture from WSBI acknowledging the rich Wright Brothers history in the City of Moraine.

     Special awards were presented to the following for their exemplary work in the design, building, craftsmanship, installation and donation of time and labor to complete the 1913 replica sculpture:

Gary Warlaumont of Bront Machining and the Warlaumont Family – design/build

Bob Palo – replica float sculpturer

Bob Sachs – logistics

Andrew Casey Electric – sculpture installation

Electro Polish Company – protective electrocoating

     In addition, special thanks were extended to City of Moraine employees Rocky Bangert (Building Maintenance), Chris Dunn (Street Department) and Bobby Engle (Building Maintenance) for their work in pouring the concrete base, installing the pole, and coordinating the aeroboat placement atop the pole.

     WSBI President Robinson shared WSBI’s history and goals and thanked several WSBI members through the years for their contributions including the late Don Ferguson, a founding member, who had the initial vision for the aeroboat sculpture back in 1914.

     Recently added in September 2024 to the site are signs telling the history of the Wright Model G Aeroboat, the Wright Brothers seaplane base, benches, and a rock with a plaque thanking all who made the historical mini-park possible.

     The 1913 Wright Model G Aeroboat Sculpture Dedication Ceremony can be seen on MVCC Miami Valley Communications Council Government Access Channel 6 or on the City of Moraine website.