The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 12

DEATH AND PROPERTY LOSS

Mr. Talbott estimated that the property loss in Montgomery County totaled at least $150,000,000. He declared that one manufacturing company alone had lost half a million dollars.

Although several carloads of provisions were received on Tuesday, officials in charge of relief work stated that the food situation was a matter of grave concern. "We must have rations for more than 100,000 people for an indefinite period," Mr. Patterson declared.

A carload of automobile tires, contributed by an Akron rubber company for use in relief work, arrived on Tuesday.

One of the great losses sustained from the flood was that which befell the public library. An inspection of the inst.i.tution disclosed the fact that the children's library, the medical library and the reference library had been wiped out of existence. Included in the loss were all the public and official accounts and copies of the newspapers dating from the first issues, back in 1822, none of which could be replaced.

County Coroner John McKemy, who in the week following the flood handled nearly one hundred bodies, said that at least twenty-five bodies were disposed of before he was released from his imprisonment by the flood.

He estimated that the number of lives lost from the flood in Dayton exceeded two hundred.

THE TASK OF REBUILDING

So day followed day in the recuperation of Dayton; but, looking ahead, it was evident to the magnificent corps of expert men in charge of the work that months must elapse before all Daytonians could again live in their own homes. There were 15,000 residences to plaster and paper before they could be occupied. There were 4,500 houses to build foundations under, to straighten, re-roof, put in doors and windows, rebuild chimneys and make other repairs before their owners could move in again. There were 2,000 houses to raze and new structures to be built.

The Citizens' Relief Committee, on advices from engineers, decided that this reconstruction work would require four months, even if building material could be obtained promptly.

So far as the business and industrial buildings were concerned, it was estimated by architects who looked over the different premises that it would require eight months before repair work and rebuilding could be accomplished. In the interim business was done in whatever premises were available.

Thousands of men were employed, together with many teams of horses, and work was pushed to the utmost in all departments. Surveys of the damage done were made and large quant.i.ties of material were ordered by telegraph, to be s.h.i.+pped immediately.

Generations must come and go before the Dayton flood will be forgotten, and standing out in bright contrast with all else there will perhaps remain longest the inspiring picture of the energy and fort.i.tude with which the stricken residents set about the retrievement of their city from the devastation of the angry waters.

CHAPTER VI

DAYTON: "THE CITY OF A THOUSAND FACTORIES"

SURVIVOR OF SIX FLOODS--ESTABLISHED BY REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--OTHER OF DAYTON'S FEATURES OF INTEREST--A CITY OF CIVIC PRIDE--"A THOUSAND FACTORIES"--ITS SUCCESS.

Dayton has stood in the shadow of disaster from flood ever since its foundation. No less than six times previous to the present inundation have the rivers which flow through it left their accustomed courses and brought death and destruction of property upon the town. The first of these floods occurred in 1805, the very year that Dayton was incorporated as a town. The sixth was in 1898 and the others in the years 1847, 1863, 1866 and 1886.

The site of the present city was purchased in 1795 by a group of Revolutionary soldiers and laid out as a town in the following year by one of them, who named it after Jonathan Dayton, a Jerseyman who had fought in the Revolution and who later served in Congress and the United States Senate. It became the county seat of Montgomery County in 1803 and received its city charter in 1841, something more than a score of years after the opening of the Miami Ca.n.a.l gave a boom to its growth and prosperity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Crowds at the end of one of the streets which was turned into a racing river. Many persons floating down on the debris were rescued by willing hands as they neared this point]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by George Grantham Bain.

Even before the flood reached its height, the wood-working department of the National Cash Register Factory was busily putting together improvised boats that were afterwards of great value in rescuing marooned residents from their flooded homes]

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Within the city limits the waters of Wolf Creek, Stillwater and Mad Rivers unite with those of the great Miami. The latter stream flows through the city from north to south. As it reaches the corporation limits at the north it sweeps to the westward and is joined by Stillwater River a mile and a half from the court house. Then it takes an easterly course for half a mile and is joined by the Mad River at a point about half a mile from the court house.

The river then bends again to the west for more than half a mile and is joined by Wolf Creek. Its course lies thereafter to the southeast. Great bridges, some of them of great architectural beauty, cross all of these streams. The Miami Ca.n.a.l takes water from the Mad River about two miles northeast of the court house, runs parallel with the Mad River to its confluence with the Miami and then runs southward to the city limits.

The city is regularly laid out, the street and house number plan being arranged with arithmetical exactness. Main Street is the center of this system and the house numbers begin from it or the point nearest it on the streets that run east or west. For the streets running north and south the house numbers begin on Third Street or the point nearest Third Street. Main and Third Streets are respectively the dividing lines of all streets crossing them.

SPLENDID PUBLIC BUILDINGS

The court house stands at Main and West Third Streets. Distances are measured from it, and it is at the center of the scheme according to which streets are laid out. Its original portion was modeled after the Greek Parthenon and is built of rough white marble taken from quarries in the vicinity. It is only one of the many buildings of which the city is proud. Among others are the Steele High School, St. Mary's College, Notre Dame Academy, Memorial Building, Arcade Building, Reibold Building, post office, Algonquin Hotel, public library and the Y. M. C.

A. building.

There is also the Union Biblical Seminary and a publis.h.i.+ng house connected therewith. The Central Theological Seminary was established in 1908. Among charitable inst.i.tutions are the Dayton State Hospital for the Insane, Miami Valley and St. Elizabeth hospitals, the Christian Deaconess', Widows' and Children's homes and the Door of Hope, a home for girls. Just outside the city is the central branch of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers. In addition to these buildings there are a number of very handsome churches.

OTHER OF DAYTON'S FEATURES OF INTEREST

Dayton is on the Erie, the Dayton and Union and the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroads. There are one hundred and twenty-five trains entering the city daily. The Union Station was opened to the public in July, 1900, and cost, including tracks, $900,000. The city has an area of ten and three-quarter square miles.

The Mayor, Treasurer, Auditor, Solicitor, and Board of Public Service, of three members, are elected by popular election. The Board of Public Safety, of two members, and the Board of Health, are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by Council. The City Council, composed of thirteen members from ten wards, is elected by popular vote, for two years, each member receiving an annual salary of $250. It is a legislative body only.

The supply of water for the city is almost inexhaustible in quant.i.ty and of absolute purity. In 1904 there were one hundred and thirty-three miles of street mains, 1,300 fire hydrants and 15,503 service taps. The Fire Department has a force of ninety men, fourteen engine-houses, fifty horses maintained at a cost of $86,728.48, and with property worth $375,000. A complete system of surface and underground sewerage, both storm and sanitary, is provided. In 1904 there were sixty-seven and nine-tenths miles of storm sewerage.

There are seven National Banks and two Savings and Trust Companies.

Dayton takes rank as foremost in building a.s.sociations of any city of its size in the country. A large number of the 20,000 or more homes in the city have been built with the aid of these a.s.sociations.

A potent force in the development of the city has been the electric traction lines, of which Dayton has more than any other city in Ohio.

There are nine lines, with a total mileage of three hundred and eighty-five miles, which radiate in all directions through the populous and rich country of which Dayton forms the center. The city railway lines, three in number, have a total mileage of nearly one hundred miles and render excellent service.

The Dayton public school system has for many years enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best school systems in the West.

Dayton had the first library incorporated in the state, one having been established in 1805. The Public Library was opened in 1855 and is supported by public taxation, having an income of $18,000 per annum.

There are five daily newspapers, each with weekly editions, besides seventeen church and other publications. There are also three large church publication houses.

The city hospitals include the St. Elizabeth Hospital, the Miami Valley Hospital, and the Protestant Hospital, which has a large central building known as the Frank Patterson Memorial of Operative Surgery, one of the most complete buildings for its purpose in the United States. The Dayton State Hospital for the Insane is maintained by the state. The Hospital of the National Military Home which adjoins the city is the largest military hospital in the world and has an average of 600 patients, all of whom are veteran volunteer soldiers of the Civil and Cuban Wars.

A CITY OF CIVIC PRIDE

Dayton was early imbued with the spirit of civic pride and the results are seen in a system of drives and parks. The streets are well built and numerous good hard gravel roads radiate into the surrounding country, a fertile farming region which abounds in limestone. The levee along the Miami is made of hard gravel and is wide enough at the top to form a foundation for a drive.

"A THOUSAND FACTORIES"

Dayton is sometimes known as "the City of a Thousand Factories," and some of its varied industries are known throughout the world. Leading these is, of course, the National Cash Register Company, which employs something more than 7,000 men.

In addition to cash registers there are manufactured agricultural machinery, clay-working machinery, cottonseed and linseed oil machinery, railway cars, carriages and wagons, automobiles, flying machines, sewing machines, paper, furniture, soap and tobacco. Almost every industrial product finds a maker in this town. Barnum & Smith are the well known manufacturers of street cars. There is the Davis Sewing Machine Company, the Speedwell Automobile Company and many others. Water-power in abundance is supplied from the Mad River.

Dayton is the fifth largest city in Ohio. The final abstract of the Federal census for 1910 placed the population at 116,577, as compared with 85,333 in 1900 and 61,220 in 1890.

With its industries so diversified, its banks and building a.s.sociations so strong and uniformly successful, and with its people so well educated, it is one of the richest and most prosperous communities in the Union.