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 Dayton merchants kept a miscellaneous stock of articles, selling dry goods, groceries, medicines, stationery; almanacs, which were In great demand, books, queensware, glass, hardware, iron, uails, and castings. When cash payments could not be obtained, wheat, rye, corn-fed pork, corn, or other merchantable produce, "suitable for the Orleans market,' was taken in payment, if delivered in time for the spring trip south by flatboat.”
History of Dayton, Ohio. With Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Pioneer and Prominent Citizens (1889). Machine-read text.
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.75001505- 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 1,006 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Old Post Office And Federal Building between 1835 and
1975: 845 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 Old Post Office And Federal 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.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned sheet.
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
from the foundation topped by four-sided lamps. decorated with a continuous low relief of honeysuckle alternat- solid stone drum Greek Ionic columns dignifies the facade. hung sash each of one tier of vertical rectangular lights. The seven bay side curtain walls are pier and window with 2/2 unifying entablature bands the building with detailed cornice covers the facing area, a flat concrete slab sheathed in CONDITION intricately decorated interior bronze work such as mail clerk dominating the southeast corner of Third and Wilkinson Streets.
ing with lotus, plain architrave and metopes alternating with columns supporting an entablature of leaf molded cornice The entrance shaped in a modified U sits on monumental classic dignity with elaborately molded bronze spandrels and transom bars and the frieze. of each wing. Between the entrance bays a two story portico of The famous Tiffany studios of New York designed all of the in the parapet is a stone grilled attic window that lights is roofed over with composition built up roofing for a one (Check One) Behind the portico is a pier and window wall of fifteen bays XX Excellent - Deteriorated and west front. stone lintels carved with fretwork. The windows are 6/6 double first floor has a six light transom above each window. double hung sash mullion windows.
On the first floor there are double two light casement transoms with mullion that have a granite transom bar: The spandrels on the sides are panelled Above the portico a decorated with ninety-two lion heads in high relief, the story mail sorting room.
Dayton's first postmaster, Benjamin Van Cleve began in 1804 to dispense the mails from a room in his log cabin dwelling at the southeast corner of E. First Street and 1892, Dayton attained its first federal building, however not The next congressman, James M. Cox, introduced an amend- ation was transferred for site acquisition and the balance 1915 Commerce Conservation Communications Aboriginal Architecture Engineering losophy SIGNIFICANCE itarian Science Theater Music Education "The treasury department considered the new Dayton post office Agriculture Landscape Religion/Phi Invention Social/Human- Industry crowded conditions in this structure.
Sculpture statement and amended bill caused much agitation in Congress, Urban Planning plans and specifications were four months in preparation and many years had passed before complaints were raised concerning to find itself moving from one loation to another in the but the measure was safely passed due to his determined the finest work to come out of the supervising architect's a night staff was augmented to aid in the completion of them. The new federal building was the personal product of By was evident that something had to be done to AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) St. Clair Street. alleviate conditions. Numerous surveys and studies were the old post office be enlarged. guide, Congressman J.
Eugene, Harding introduced a bill on December 21, 1,907 to appropriate $325,000 for the improvement. suggested sites, the government selected the location at of $15,000 was to be spent on temporary improvements to the Art J.Knox Taylor the government supervising architect. The made by visiting government officials and they suggested From this beginning the post office was Military leaders or the general public. Before the actual addition old post office.0n July 29,1910,the treasury department
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001505, 25 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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