On the way to our tour of Hawthorn Hill, we got a nice view of the Dayton skyline. When you see a city from this distance there's no way to know what's at street level. Most of what we drove through later was terribly dilapidated, but the southern area of the city from the University of Dayton out through the suburb of Oakwood is beautiful.
This was a city at the forefront of industry in the 1800's and 1900's. It has a great history of invention and innovation. Besides aviation, there was a lot going on here in the auto industry with ten auto manufacturers here at one time. One of the most important things going on here now is the Air Force's research and development at Wright-Patterson.
Carillon Historical Park has a multitude of displays of every part of Dayton's history. The park along with the carillon were given to the city by one of its famous philanthropist citizens who had the carillon built after she heard one in Europe. The rest of the park has so much in it we weren't able to cover more than a very small amount.
National Cash Register (NCR) was a very big deal in Dayton which explains the extensive collection of hundreds of cash registers on display. There are several rooms full of them. Most are exceptionally beautiful. NCR had been here for 125 years and was a major employer when it moved to Atlanta in 2009, a huge blow to the economy of both Dayton and Ohio.
Our tour of Hawthorn Hill left from Carillon Park. The only way to see it is via one of the tours which is given only on Saturdays and Wednesdays. There's no fence or gate on the property so anyone could drive up here if they knew where it was, but there's no place to park and the doors are locked so there wouldn't be much point.
The entrance to Hawthorn Hill, the mansion built by the Wrights in 1912-1914. The front and back mirror one another and which one is which is debatable. The driveway comes up on the side away from the street so it's generally considered that this is the back.
The Wrights were unpretentious people so, while the house is elegant, it is not over-done. It has only five bedrooms, one for each of family member plus one guest room. Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912 before ground was broken for the house, although they already had the land purchased and the house plans drawn up. Wilbur's bedroom became a second guest room.
They needed a bigger house than the one they'd lived in for 30 years on Hawthorn Road because so many people kept coming to visit them. In those days the hosts were expected to provide lodging for visitors and their old house just wouldn't do with its lack of electricity and running water and only three bedrooms. The new house was named Hawthorn Hill because of the 84 hawthorn trees around it, not in honor of their previous house.
Orville died of a heart attack in 1948 at age 77. He had said he didn't want the house turned into a monument to him, that the family was to take what they wanted from the house and sell the rest. The day the house was put on the market it was purchased by his friend and chairman of NCR who turned it into a corporate guest house. Photos were taken of all the rooms two weeks after Orville's death so there's a record by which the house is now being restored to its 1948 condition by Dayton History.
Orville's library was the only room not renovated by NCR. The wall-covering is gold damask fabric which Orville wanted so that it could be removed, washed and put back up. It's hard to imagine that removing and reinstalling fabric would be easier or less expensive than painting.
The tour was well worth taking and we learned a lot of incidental things from our guide. The Wrights moved to Oakwood because they wanted to be out in the country. They were fortunate to have bought their 17 acres of land prior to the 1913 flood which devastated downtown Dayton. After the flood many people moved to the hills south of town to get to higher ground so Oakwood became very popular. It's a really beautiful suburb and appears to have very expensive real estate.
Our guide also explained that Dayton's present-day high crime problem is caused by being a major hub for the Mexican drug cartels with I-75 and I-70 crossing here. Not what a city wants to be known for.
Probably no more blog entries until Saturday or Sunday. Tomorrow is laundry, groceries, getting propane again since we've accidentally run out. Didn't think about how much propane the generator would use when we had it running the air conditioning while we were loading the RV. The only outlet we can run power from at the house is just 20 amps and it won't run the AC and fridge so the generator is the only option.
Friday we plan to get as far as Birch Run, Michigan (between Flint and Saginaw) and Saturday we'll be in Mackinaw City. I don't plan on posting again until then unless something really interesting happens.
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