{"nrhp_refnum":"84003785","name":"Dayton Motor Car Company Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"15, 101,123-5 Bainbridge; 9-111 and 122-124 McDonough","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dayton","county":"Montgomery County","state":"OH","lat":39.75993907800006,"lon":-84.17987749764012,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-05-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A twelve-building industrial district near downtown Dayton, Ohio, along Bacon, Bainbridge and McDonough Streets, with buildings dating from the early 1870s to 1925. It grew from the Stoddard Manufacturing Company's farm implement works into the Dayton Motor Car Company's automobile plant.","why_significant":"The district marks the site of Dayton's largest farm implement company between 1875 and 1900, which helped Dayton rank among Ohio's top farm machinery producers. It later became the city's first automobile manufacturing company, showing how implement makers converted to car production. The site's canal and railroad location also reflects Dayton's industrial growth.","narrative":"Twelve industrial buildings tucked behind the East Third Street railroad viaduct in Dayton make up this district. Seven brick structures from the 1870s to 1890s belong to the Stoddard Manufacturing Company, which made harvesters, grain drills, seeders, hay rakes and harrows. Two seven-story reinforced concrete factories followed soon after automobile production began in 1903, along with a 1913 storage building, a 1910 foundry and a 1925 building with brick facing. Each building served a distinct purpose, so sizes and styles vary and none is architecturally outstanding. The site mattered because the company was Dayton's largest farm implement maker and then became the city's first automobile manufacturer, producing complete cars until 1912. Its location between early hydraulic races, beside the Miami Canal and the railroad, favored industry. After the plant was sold by 1929, smaller firms used the buildings for factories and warehousing, and the exteriors remain largely unaltered. One concrete factory, building #1, stands empty.","period_of_significance":"1873-1925","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Mostly occupied by small manufacturing and warehouse firms; exteriors are relatively unchanged. Building #1 is empty and deteriorating but structurally sound. Condition is rated fair.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:53:14.309719-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/84003785.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003785/f67a80c62f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003785/f67a80c62f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Wdzinc","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dayton_Motor_Car_Company_Historic_District_Dayton_Motor_Car_Company_Historic_District.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Wdzinc</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dayton_Motor_Car_Company_Historic_District_Dayton_Motor_Car_Company_Historic_District.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71990534","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Motor_Car_Company_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34825593"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/montgomery-county/dayton-motor-car-company-historic-district-84003785/"}