Category: Moraine Historical Markers & Moraine History

Expedition Team:  Dave Miller, Aaron Vietor, Kim Wallace, Mike Moorhead

Photo #1 taken in 1926 and shows an aviation event at Moraine Field, Dayton Municipal Airport. Our research was to (1) determine the location of Moraine Field and (2) determine was it really Dayton’s first Municipal Airport. This expedition was different, instead of walking through woods and trails as I did to discover the location of the Wright Brothers “Pinnacles”, we explored the internet, library and museum archives.

In the 1926 photos, Aaron thought the road at the top was Northlawn Ave. (based on the similar tree line and slight bend) when compared with a 1965 photo. I found a reprint of this 1926 photo in a 1979 Moraine publication which stated the airport was near Bertwyn Drive and Dorothy Lane. Bertwyn Drive up until the 1980’s was the northern part of now Springboro Pike between the Northlawn Bridge and I-75. Kim, Aaron and I kept searching. Aaron found Photo #2 which shows the airpark and what looks like Springboro Pike south of Northlawn. Researching the Dayton History archives I confirmed that location by finding several photos taken from a biplane circling the airport (taken in either the fall of 1926 or spring of 1927) clearing showing Springboro and Dorothy Lane. The airport would have been located 200 yards east of the Northlawn Bridge/Springboro Pike intersection and north of the new Fuyao Glass Plant (former General Motors Plant) entrance road.

Question 2, was this really the first Dayton Municipal Airport. Mike had located a document referencing a letter to the Dayton City Manager from Rinehart-Whelan Company (former Wright Brothers test pilots) offering the Moraine Flying Field to the City of Dayton in April 1926, without cost, as a Municipal Landing Field for commercial airplanes. On May 5, I spent the afternoon at Wright State University Library, Wright Brothers Special Collections. A box was brought to me labeled “Old Dayton Municipal Airport Documents”. It contained one file per year from 1926 to 1953. The 1926 file had 11 letters/documents. An April 1926 letter from Rinehart offered the airpark to Dayton City Manager Eichelberger. The Dayton City Attorney prepared an acceptance contract and resolution (Photo#6). An August 12, 1926 letter from the City Manager (Photo#7) proved the City of Dayton financed the painting of “Moraine Field, Dayton Municipal Airport” and utilized the field although no formal contract was signed.

A 1927 document went on to say that Moraine field was utilized until the summer of 1928 when air mail service moved to Wright Field in Dayton. That year a memo by the City Manager showed that Dayton was looking for land in the Vandalia area for an airport.  Another letter to Dayton Airport Committee marketing state of the art hangers with a 50’ mast for airships. We all know this new air transportation trend ended abruptly with the Hindenburg Disaster.

The Moraine Historical Marker (Photo#5) commemorating Moraine Field was installed in August of 2016 at the Fuyao entrance ramp just east of the Northlawn/Springboro intersection across from the Northlawn Avenue Bridge.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Jacque Miller

The City of Moraine celebrated its 50th Birthday in 2015 (1965-2015). Moraine City Manager David Hicks asked my wife and I to chair a committee to plan and administer monthly special events, programs and projects throughout 2015 which we were honored to do.

Throughout my life while traveling I enjoyed reading Ohio (and other states) Historical Markers along the highway. With Moraine’s rich history, I decided to research, write and install ten Moraine Historical Markers as one of the “Moraine 50th Anniversary Projects”. Three of the ten markers dealt with the Wright Brothers as they had a strong presence in Moraine. This adventure was to find the famous “Pinnacles”.

In 1897 leading minds who dreamed of man flying argued what was most important – power or control. Wilbur Wright believed it was control. Every summer in 1898 when the weather was good the Wright Brothers bicycled south from Dayton to a popular, yet secluded picnic area called “The Pinnacles”, a cliff and gorge above the Miami River with large, unique boulders and strange geologic formations created during the ice age. (By the way, the City of Moraine got its name because moraine means the dirt, rock and gravel pushed along and left after a glacier). Ranging 60 to 80 feet high, the Pinnacles created updrafts that attracted buzzards and other birds providing an ideal observation area for the Wrights to study the mechanics of flight. Wilbur would lay and use binoculars to study the larger birds flying and turning. By the end of the summer of 1898, he determined his wing-warping theory here in Moraine based upon his observations of the birds twisting their wing tips.

City of Moraine employees Kim Wallace and Aaron Vietor helped on additional research and finding vintage photos. Six photos taken by Orville & Wilbur Wright in 1898 exist although one is of poor quality and a second photo shows a bridge behind the Pinnacles which is the basis of another expedition. The four main photos are shown below. See the detailed description on each photo. Written articles and diary records mentioned an area of the Pinnacles called the “Devils Backbone”. I remember in the mid 1970’s swinging on a tire swing and climbing trees in the woods that the locals called the Devils Backbone. Using this as a reference point plus the four vintage photos, I did four solo expeditions along hiking trails and deer trails in that area during the spring of 2015. Still, I was not convinced of the location.

As Aaron, Kim and I re-examined the photos and debated the location, the answer can to me. The water in photo #2 & #3 was not the Miami River but was the stagnant pond (Visible to the right in Photo#2) between the Pinnacle cliffs to the north and the railroad tracks and river to the south. Expedition #5 in May 2015 proved it and I discovered the exact location. I could sit at the top of the Pinnacle cliff and feel the cool updrafts hitting my face and see birds rising on the current. Below me the pond was still there but after 117 years, hundreds of trees and bushes had grown in the shallow pond which disguised it from that 1898 photo. Sadly, the weird geological shaped formation in photo #1 (with Wilbur Wright standing by it) has eroded away.

My daughter Jacque joined me on Expedition #6, and we tried to take photos at the Pinnacles at the same location that the Wright Brothers did. To me, it is unbelievable that this famous location is only one mile south from where I live and is one half mile north of where I worked all those years at Splash Moraine Waterpark/Moraine Recreation Center.

The Moraine Historical Marker for “The Pinnacles” is located along Main Street beside the Main Street Bike Trail.  Volunteers and I are developing the 1.1 mile “Wright Brothers Pinnacles Hiking Trail” which we hope to have completed by 2022.

Expedition Team:  Ron Elter, Rosie Miller, Dave Miller

Expedition Date: February 2016

This was our third trek to the excavation site on a unseasonably beautiful 68-degree day. Our team was joined by resolute and impregnable explorer Ron Elter. We continued to clear the three inches of dirt, moss and weeds to uncover the original brick road once traveled by horse and wagon. Rosie and Ron cleared the end bricks and measured a road width of 16 feet 11 inches. I continued to clear and expose a larger section of brick. Ron chiseled away at two end bricks for over 15 minutes before removing them. They are much heavier than today’s bricks and were sent away for analysis. They will be part of an eventual historical display at Moraine’s recreation centers and at local schools. After 140+ years, that brick road is solid.

For you Moraine history buffs look closely at the early 1920’s map that we used to find the buried road and note these interesting things that were different almost 100 years ago: Blanchard Avenue was called Edison Avenue after famous inventor Thomas Edison; Vance Road in front of Frank Nicholas School was called Apple Road (and the future homes Apple Plat); Pensacola Blvd. was called Broadmoor Blvd; Lauderdale Drive was called Orlando Drive; Lehigh Place was called Lansing; Notice a short road called Carroll Drive off of Edison Ave. where Treasure Island Supper Club is today.  The Cincinnati & Lake Erie Interurban Transit electric rail line ran parallel to South Dixie.  Notice the Lindbergh Blvd. plat in West Carrollton today was called South Moraine area back then. Alexandersville was the area that eventually became West Carrollton.   East River Road was called Eby Road and that Dryden Road (which ran parallel to the Miami-Erie Canal was shaped different.

Did You Know: South Dixie Drive was two-way traffic until after World War II. (Notice Kettering Blvd. Runs into Springboro Pike, not like today). In 1941 Frigidaire stopped making refrigerators, began war production and built airplane parts, machine guns and bullets. An extra lane was added to westbound Dixie Drive to accommodate increased truck traffic.

Expedition Team:  Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Expedition Date:  January 2016

I was joined by intrepid, circumspect explorer Rosie Miller. Temperature was 38 degrees made cooler by a wind chill. We parked and literally walked across history as we trekked across the former site of the Miami-Erie Canal which ran north-south where Dryden Road exists today. At the excavation site, we continued to unearth the original brick highway which is one to three inches underground. We cleared grass, dirt and light weeds. Rosie found the edge of the brick road on the south side. I unearthed within six inches of the edge of the north side of the brick road. We measured a width of over 11 feet. We also discovered underground the green metal sign with a “R” on it which Rosie holds in one of the photos. Must be an old sign to signify “railroad”. I tried to remove a brick but the 130+ year old road is still mortared in solid after all these years. I will have to research how to remove a brick from the edge of the highway. One of the photo’s is a circa 1910 map showing the Cincinnati-Dayton Pike which was at ground level (no railroad overpass). In the map you can see the Cincinnati, Dayton & Lake Erie Interurban Transit Line trolley tracks ran parallel to the road and did have an overpass in West Carrollton where it passed over the Miami & Erie Canal.  Between the interurban trolley line and South Dixie Drive there is no Waffle House, no pawn shop, no hotel, no WDTN Channel 2 building and no Frisch’s Restaurant.