{"nrhp_refnum":"93001391","name":"United Brethren Publishing House","other_names":["Centre City Building"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"40--46 S. Main St. (7--21 E. Fourth St.)","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dayton","county":"Montgomery County","state":"OH","lat":39.75840512100007,"lon":-84.19143627999995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1993-12-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A fourteen-story Chicago Commercial style office building with a five-story tower, plus two attached manufacturing buildings, at Main and East Fourth streets in downtown Dayton, Ohio. The office building was built in 1904-1905 and extended in 1923-1924.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is the only tall Chicago Commercial style office building in Dayton and was the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world when completed in 1924. It also documents the United Brethren Church's presence in Dayton and its Progressive Era real estate venture to fund pensions for retired ministers.","narrative":"This downtown Dayton complex centers on a fourteen-story office building with a five-story tower, built in the Chicago Commercial style. The first five bays on Main Street date from 1904-1905, designed by Dayton architect Charles Herby. Eight more bays and the tower were added in 1923-1924. The building is faced with Bedford, Indiana stone and buff pressed brick, and its upper stories retain original double-hung windows. Two attached manufacturing buildings, one from about 1909 on Market Street and one remodeled in 1903-1904 on Fourth Street, once housed the printing operations. The United Brethren Publishing House built the complex as a real estate venture whose profits were meant to fund pensions for retired ministers. Its 1924 addition made it the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world. It is considered locally significant for its architecture, as Dayton's only tall Chicago style office building, and for what it shows about the denomination, business progressivism and the growth of the central business district. The church sold it in 1952.","period_of_significance":"1903-1943","architect_builder":"Charles Herby (original 1904-1905 office building; F. A. Requarth Company, contractor); F. S. Hughes with engineers S. J. Branson and G. S. Bergendahl (1923-1924 addition)","architectural_style":"Chicago (Chicago Commercial)","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Historic and current functions are both listed as commerce/business; the first two stories were remodeled in 1983-1984.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:07.374523-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/93001391.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001391/0e300551c0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001391/0e300551c0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Photo by Greg Hume (Greg5030)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UnitedBrethrenPublishing.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Photo by Greg Hume (Greg5030)</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:UnitedBrethrenPublishing.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"100004316","name":"Downtown Dayton Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/ohio/downtown-dayton-historic-district-100004316/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71990567","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_City_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5062244"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/montgomery-county/united-brethren-publishing-house-93001391/"}