It’s not really called that, that’s what I call it since this area is sort of lower down in elevation than the rest of the South Park neighborhood (though I will be looking at a bit of “upper South Park” too)…what I will show you is basically the area north of Hickory and also between Main and Warren south to Miami Valley Hospital.
Starting out with the early plats of Dayton. Daniel Cooper platted this area out by 1812 as out-lots. As in the Oregon and elsewhere in east Dayton the Cooper out-lots are the palimpsest of the modern street grid.
What is interesting is Brown Street, which originally ran off at an angle as it left what was to become the Oregon. It was eventually cut through to connect with Warren Street, thus the original alignment became “Old Brown Street”, today’s Morton Street.
What drove this odd out-lot configuration, which ran off at an angle along Hickory Street? I think this line of out-lots followed the low bluff or rise that curves through east Dayton. More noticeable at places like Fairground Hill or St Anne Hill /Dutoit Street it passes through South Park, too. Daniel Cooper was, according to early accounts, very aware of the possibilies of water power, and perhaps saw this location as an opportunity for mill sites if water could be brought to the rise.
This didn’t happen at this location, but Seely’s Ditch was cut through just below the bluff, which kicked off the first plats of townlots in the area (from the 1830s). Portions of Lower South Park where platted by 1839
The line of Seely’s Ditch as it passes through Lower South Park:
By 1868/69 much of the area had been platted, but actual construction lagged the platting a bit. As one can see by this map Lower South Park was sort of an extension of the Oregon District as the city grew to the south.
Here is a map showing lots that where built on by 1868/69, illustrating the physical growth of Dayton up to that time. This is not really a figure-ground map but just shows build-out up to that time. This is the old 19th century antebellum and Civil-War era city, Dayton before the horse car and streetcar:
And the pattern without the base map, as a diagram of urban growth
…which represents some of the oldest housing in Dayton. Incidentally one of the first horse car lines in Dayton passed through here on Brown Street (the Oakwood Street Railway).
By the 1930s Downtown and its fringe was impinging on both the Oregon and Lower South Park as part of the urban recycling process, replacing housing with buisiness, especially in the area along Main and Warren along the old canal…later Patterson Blvd. Older houses where also being replaced by apartments and sort of rowhouses.
Brown Street remained a main route into the city, which would have been experienced as traveling through increasingly dense neighborhoods as one got closer to downtown.
The big hit came with the postwar urban renewal and expressway construction, which decimated the early and mid-19th century neighborhoods of Dayton.
A close-up of how this affected Lower South Park. Brown Street as the route connecting South Park with the Oregon was severed, and the US 35 Expressway formed a barrier between the neighborhoods, or perhaps created a barrier as Lower South Park might be considered to have been an
extension of the Oregon.
The Expressway voiding urban space and breaking the city, on Buckeye Street, which was itself made to conform to highway engineering via widening and curving…
The 1950s planners’ future for the Oregon and Lower South Park: public housing. This and a project in the Oregon where to be the start of the replacement of these neighborhoods via urban renewal
Lower South Park as of 1980. Some historic features overplayed on the map, showing how Seely’s ditch remains in ghost form as the Burns Street parkway, and how Brown Street was obliterated by public housing and the expressway. A big block was also removed to form a park next to & behind the old Emerson School on Hickory Street.
Dayton’s great neighborhood market (our West Side Market) on Wayne Avenue was right in the path of the expressway so was razed.
The same neighborhood in 1868/69
..and a modern tour of oldest South Park, of some houses on Hickory, Bonner and other parts…
Hickory StreetA lot of this street is somewhat “newer”, dating from the later 19th century and later, but a few oldies remain….
Perhaps one of the oldest houses in South Park? It sits on an 1845 plat, and bears a family resemblance to certain Oregon houses
…the Oregon twins, of which the above house is a cousin:
Hickory Street streetscape:
What one sees here is sort of the Dayton version of the “workingman’s cottage” one finds in Chicago. In early Chicago these where built on the outskirts of the city, just like these in Dayton. Another way of looking at these is as the Dayton version of the shotgun house. If these are the original houses on the lots we can say this house form had appeared in Dayton by 1868… perhaps these are some of the earliest examples.
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Bonner StreetPlatted in 1851. On the 1869 map this block of Bonner shows as mostly built-out. But I think there is some urban recycling going on there.
Two probably original houses on Bonner
And an example of recycling. What is probably an old house from the original plat (and one that looks a lot like samples in the Oregon) next to what is probably a later 19th century foursquare that replaced earlier housing.
More Bonner Street. The one on the far left is post WWII.
Two more Bonner Street houses as examples of the Dayton working class cottage. These are probably what was originally on this street, probably the one on the left is older and the one on the right was infill as an example of “doubling up” on one lot.
Taking a look at two other clusters as an example of the genesis of South Park…this further down on Hickory.
On set is perhaps older than the other.
Old Brown/Morton & HickoryThe heavily modified “1840 House”. Very possibly the oldest in South Park, the heavy front porch and window modifications obscure a family resemblance to old Oregon houses.
Oregon Houses:
1840 House
The 1840s House’s neighbors:
blue house pix
On the alley….
Across the street (and this one is between 1860 and 1869..Civil War era)
Hickory and Brown and Alberta Street. All of these are between 1860 and 1869
..the brick porch is probably a lot later than the house.
…I think this one has been heavily remodeled.
Taking a walk in Lower South ParkSo far its been Urban Analysis on Hickory Street. Lets just walk down the bluff and wander around this Lower South Park.
Burns Street…route of the Seely’s Ditch canal
Big houses on the rise overlooking Burns…
Funky angles here as Brown meets “Old Brown” streets
Dense Urban Dayton
On Buckeye Street….
Large vacant lot. We are in one of Dayton’s “zones of destruction”, where there is housing abandonment and demolition going on.
As the expressway wall blocks us from the Oregon, we turn back into Lower South Park
“The Zone of Destruction”
Dayton Sawed-Off Shotguns…
Crossing Warren: side streets between Warren and Main in the shadow of Miami Valley Hospital
The little house in the foreground is probably original to this street
Funky staircase
Early doubles from the 1860s
Dayton vernacular
Maybe one of the last of its type to be built in Dayton
And back across Warren to Burns, showing what urban renewal had in mind
The Wayne Street Market building would have been straight ahead, exactly where the freeway is now
The urban renewal vision….towers in a park, ringed by freeways…..(but a nice little walkway across the expressway to the Oregon)
What we’d rather have….(or maybe not?)
