Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Conover Building, also known as Wright Stop Plaza, is a historic structure in downtown Dayton, Ohio, United States. Constructed at the turn of the twentieth century, the Conover features a mix of architectural styles and sits at a prominent intersection, and it has been named a historic site.”
Wikipedia article Conover Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 117 National Register listings in Montgomery County · listed in 1975 · category: Building · one of 4 National Historic Landmarks in Montgomery County.
National Register reference number.75001497- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Dayton city, The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
A Typical Frontier Vavern - Daytou Contained Nine Dwellings in 1799- - Several Roads Opened--Monument Avenue Cleared--Main Street a Narrow Wagon Road - Settlements Few and Far Between - Hardships of Pioneer Life--Tidian War Apprehended - Block House Built - Schooi Opened in the Block House- - First Distillery Started - Cooper's Saw Mill - Corn Cracker - Hogs Introduced - Feed on Mast - Attacked by Wild Animals--First Flat Boat Launched-Sheep Introduced - Cost of Groceries at Cinciunati - Little Money jin Circulation - Business Conducted by Barter - Value of Diffsrent Kinds of Skins--Cut Money - McDougal's Store - Trade with the Indians - First Child Boro in Dayton - Taxation in 1800 - First Wedding - Census in 1801 - First Miuister - - Methodists - Presbyterians--Log Meeting House - First Grave Yard - - Jobn W.
During the winter of 1796-97, Dayton Township and other township, were formed, making eleven in all in the county, viz., Cincinnati, Columbi; Miami, Anderson. Iron Ridge, South Bend, Colerain, Springfield, Fairfiel Deerfield and Dayton. Fairfield Township included the territory east of tl Big Miami, now in Butler County. Deerfield Township included the territoi west of the Little Miami, now in Warren County, and that part of Montgon irj County between the Miami Rivers south of the north line of the fifth range )f" townships. Dayton Township was bounded as follows: Beginning at a point >n the east bank of the Big Miami, where it was intersected by the north line )f the fifth range of townships; thence up that river in all its meanderings to he Indian boundary-lino, at a point where said river crossed the said Indian boundary -line, in Section 18, Township 2, in the fom-teenth range of townships, between the Miamis; thence along said line to Ludlow's line, and down that ine to the southeast corner of Section 5, Township 6, in the eighth range of townships between the Miamis, where was a branch of the Little Miami River; hence down the river to the north line of the fifth range of townships; thence (vest with said line to the place of beginning. The township thus described infiuded within its limits territory that now forms portions of the counties of Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark, Champaign, Logan and Shelby. All of Wayne, Mad River and Van Buren, with parts of Washington, Dayton and Miimi Townships, of Montgomery County, as at present formed, were in Dayton Township.
The Commissioners of Hamilton County, on the 10th of June, 1797, at a neeting held at the Mansion House, of Seth Cutter's, in Cincinnati, appointed Assessors and Collectors for the several townships. James Brady was made Issessor, and John Kitchell, Collector, of Dayton Township. John Kitchell, 'ailing to qualify, Calvin Morrill, was, on the 25th of August, appointed in his lead, and Cyrus Osborn was appointed Constable of Dayton Township. Constables made returns of persons and property to the Assessors, who made the iists and assessments, that were placed in the hands of the Township Collectors for collection. The Commissioners and Assessors jointly controlled the disbursenents, making regular reports to the County Court. The reports of assessments ind collections for Dayton Township for this year, were lost in transit, between Dayton and Cincinnati ; the Clerk was ordered to forward duplicates, and Collector Morrill was directed to make return by the 15th of January, 1798. There vere sixteen delinquents in the township, and the Collector made final return, fight of them non est, seven satisfied and one lost. After the lists were returned each year, the Commissioners and Assessors met as a Court of Appeals, to hear appeals against assessments. The following orders show the amount of fees paid to these first officers.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,014 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Conover Building between 1835 and
1975: 853 Animalia, 90 Plantae, 59 Fungi, 4 Protozoa, 4 Unrecorded, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A JOHN, A JOHN AND W E DUELLMAN, A. E. Foeerste and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
15 workings within 5 miles of Conover Building: 10 past producers, 5 producers.
5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Dayton, the town this property stands in, in 74 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 41 thunderstorm wind, 15 hail, 8 flash flood, 7 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
A University of Dayton student, Sean Ferguson, 23 of Pittsburgh, was struck by lightning as he ran across university parking lot C. The student was hospitalized with serious burns and a broken jaw.
Thunderstorms winds measured by spotters as high as 72 mph downed numerous trees, many of which fell on cars and blew on to and into homes. A construction trailer was severely damaged and some businesses received damage.
A roof was blown off of a residence in East Dayton as well as several utility poles that were snapped in half. Numerous trees were down in the vicinity of Glenrock Road and East Fifth Street. Several trees landed on parked automobiles and garages.
Large limbs were reported broken. A large tree was uprooted. Numerous large tree limbs were down in the road. These occurrences were due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
A car was stranded on Keowee Street under State Route 4 due to high water. Three feet of water was also reported on Webster Street at the underpass of State Route 4.
Numerous roads were flooded throughout the Dayton metropolitan area. A man had to be rescued when he drove his car into a flooded retention pond near the Dayton Mall.
8 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,098 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
corona in a wave form band and frieze decorated with a band The six story intermediate tier is set off by trabeating tenth story is dentiled and the cornice is bracketed. and twelfth stories have panelled spandrels, Ionic pilasters rentablature elaborately decorated. The facia is interrupted of crowned kings flanked by foliated rosettes: Large:! Loan changing its name to the American Building: It changed hands again c. 1921 after the savings and loan went broke. The entablature of the third tier was suffering weather to offices in the 1950's. CONDITION century eclectic Renaissance Revival Conover Building classical parts scaled to its height.
Architect Frank Andrews's thirteen story turn-of-the- The building was purchased by the American Savings and thirteenth floor architect's studio and it was converted architrave windows in each bay alternate with a frieze of and a belt course between the capitols decorated with festoons commercial facade of rusticated stone with three bays on constructedof steel and conreteis designed in the three character with monumental relief of the O.W.Ketcham Terra The first tier of four stories is an arcaded of targets connected by festoons of produce.
in l92l so skillfully that it cannot be detected by visual existing balconies and the windows were enlarged into the The terminal tier of three stories is baroque in (Check One) An identical third bay was added to the Third Street:facade by iron railed balconiesin each bay alternating with masks and in the arch are three tiers of display and mullion tier of the Main Street facade in 1924. X] Excellent originally had pediments. architrave paired in each bay. The facia of the trabeated a double dentiled mold bed. The roof is concealed. with torch finials was removed. The tabernacle windows facia. Fair cated stone quoins. fretwork with rosettes.
The innovative buildings of the National Cash Register Company of-Dayton, Ohio brought him national acclaim. office studio under an art glass rotunda on the thirteenth the quarter block from D. C. Cooper, proprietor of Dayton, 1900 Indiana. Engineering SIGNIFICANCE His Education Architecture Science Political losophy Landscape Aboriginal Religion/Phi- Theater itarian Agriculture Invention Literature Sculpture Social/Human- While Richardson and Sullivan were working out new design Iowa, graduated in engineering from Iowa State and in archi- at the central intersection of Dayton is a positive contri- Urban Planning The Conover Building in eclectic Renaissance Revival first great success was the Columbia Club in Indianapolis, floor of the Conover Building.
merchants descendants built this building on the site Architect Frank M. Andrews attained national prominence style is an important example of an attempt to adapt classical Blacksmith Obadiah Conover from New Jersey bought butor to the esthetic values in downtown Dayton. Music Other (Specify) AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) bustling little city of Dayton in 1894 at age 27. Art The young architect was not long in achieving regional prominence. He installed his motifs to a high rise structure.This imposing building adapting them cleverly to modern needs. for practical experience.Andrews opened his office in the
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001497, 18 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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