Dayton, Ohio Part 2 (Take a Walk)

Dayton is decently sized place with about 130,000 residents in the city proper and about 800,000 in the larger metropolitan area. So that makes it large enough for some attractions and urban amenities, but nobody would mistake it for a city that never sleeps. I figured I might run out of things to do before the end of the week and I came dangerously close. Fortunately I filled much of the void by taking long walks and exploring as much as I could.

Dayton has a tight urban core along with a couple of embedded, rejuvenated neighborhoods where I concentrated my efforts. After that came some older areas needing touch-up, ringed by traditional suburb which then gave way to farmland. My walking adventures represented only the tiniest, most urban slice of Dayton and were hardly representative of the larger area. However, I think they probably covered some of the more visually stimulating places.

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Oregon District

The Oregon Historic District is one of the older neighborhoods in Dayton (map), with parts of it dating to the first half of the 19th Century. Nobody really knows the origin of the name. However, residents were calling it Oregon right around the same time as the establishment of the Oregon Trail. Communities in the eastern United States were adopting the name California around the same time period so maybe that’s what happened here with Oregon. But who really knows?

The neighborhood featured two distinct purposes, one commercial and the other residential. Naturally I explored both as I walked around during early daylight hours before most people woke up. The commercial area centered on both sides of East Fifth Street for several blocks. It had a funky hipster vibe. So if anyone wanted a tattoo, piercing, vintage clothing, comic books or craft beer then head that way. I returned again during business hours when it was a little more vibrant.

The residential portion of the Oregon District occupied several blocks to the immediate south. The architecture was a visual delight. Most buildings displayed obvious evidence of meticulous upkeep and maintenance in recent decades. It’s hard to believe that it was so blighted in the 1960’s that the city considered leveling much of it and starting over. Fortunately preservationists established a historic district there that brought attention and resources needed to rejuvenate the area to its present glory. I’m pretty sure I walked down every street in the district at least once during the week.

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St. Anne’s Hill

We stayed at an Airbnb just to the east in the equally walkable St. Anne’s Hill neighborhood (map). It was a few decades newer and represented the continuing expansion of Dayton in the later part of the 19th Century. Like its neighbor, St. Anne’s Hill went through a downturn in the postwar period and into the 1960’s before revitalization.

A small commercial strip cut through St. Anne’s Hill but most of it was residential. The whole neighborhood didn’t cover a huge territory so I could easily see it all. Here, walkable streets and beautiful restorations were a common feature.

Then, almost by magic it transitioned abruptly into a working class area that hadn’t experienced the same transformation. I couldn’t tell if restorations will continue marching east or if this represented a high-water mark.

The rest of the walk looked more like this photo. It wasn’t awful by any means although it looked a bit rough for wear. Maybe its heyday was a generation or two ago? I wish I could have visited Butch’s Bar before its demise. Unfortunately the Intertubes said it closed circa 2017 after a long, glorious career as a classic dive bar. And that seemed pretty emblematic of what’s out here at the farther reaches of Dayton’s Inner East.

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Downtown

Dayton isn’t huge although it features a well-defined downtown core with a few taller office buildings and such. It felt kind of empty much of the time, like so many downtowns in the post-pandemic world.

The Miami River hugs downtown on the north and the west and several bridges provide access to adjacent neighborhoods. This is a view from the Riverside Drive bridge. Here the downtown area appears on the left (south) side of the river while the McPherson Town Historic District appears on the right (north). Historically, McPherson Town was one of the original Dayton suburbs.

But even though downtown feels a little quite it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have potential. In general, people are moving back into cities across the nation for amenities that come with population density, and Dayton is embracing a similar trend. A lot of redevelopment clusters around Day Air Ballpark (map), home of the minor league Dayton Dragons. Unfortunately our visit fell outside of baseball season because it looked like a great place to spend an afternoon.

Downtown Dayton also included the DORA, the Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area. People could carry open containers of alcoholic beverages within the DORA although encumbered by a number of rules (e.g., using a specially designated cup). My walks were way too early in the morning to take advantage of the DORA but I liked the possibility.