Dayton Motor Car Company Historic District

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.