The trio of buildings pictured here once faced the historic Miami and Erie Canal in between First and Second Streets downtown.
Today, two of the three structures still stand and now front Patterson Boulevard.
The building in the middle is the one that is no longer here. It was said to be over 100 years old when it was razed in 1934.
The structure to the left was originally A. N. Nixon’s Tobacco Warehouse. Today it is occupied by Club Evolution, formerly Riff Raff Tavern on the Canal, and is adjacent to other bars Southern Belle and Canal Street Arcade and Deli (formerly Canal Street Tavern).
The building on the right was the Chambers Canal Depot which dates back to 1850. All merchandise coming and going on the canal was received and shipped at this location.
In 1927, a two-story brick and concrete structure was constructed directly adjacent to the depot building on the south side (to the right of the image).
It was originally an auto dealership and later housed the long-distance phone service provider Ameri-Comm Communications.
Owner William H. Turner sold the telephone business in 1996 and the building fell vacant, but three years later new excitement came in the form of the new Dayton Dragons professional baseball team who would play their games just around the corner.
Turner put the building on the auction block in 1999 with hopes that a sports pub or microbrewery would take advantage of the newfound buzz in the area.
But that didn’t materialize, and instead in 2002 Miami-Jacobs Career College moved into the space. The institution has its own long history in downtown Dayton, having been founded in 1960 as Miami Commercial College. The old Canal Depot building served as home to Miami-Jacobs’s School of Massage Therapy.
Today, the building is still used for educational purposes as it is the home of DECA Middle School.
It may have taken a bit longer than expected for the Dayton Dragons ballpark to fuel large-scale development in the surrounding area, but today Webster Station is the hottest part of Dayton with many adaptive reuse and new construction projects underway. These include the historic Mendelson Building (formerly Delco Plant #2) and other remaining symbols of the area’s industrial past.
We close with a modern-day version to compare to the historic image.
Historic image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library
Isn’t the canal street tavern one of the oldest buildings in Dayton? Was it once moved to its current location?
Thx for the time.
Denise
Hi Denise,
I don’t believe it was ever moved because it was built at that spot due to its access to the canal, but it does date to the 1870s which puts it among the oldest in Webster Station and the Central Business District too. Some buildings in the Oregon District and a few other locations are quite a bit older, and if you are counting houses in the discussion you might find the following article interesting too: https://daytonvistas.com/early-buildings-whats-the-oldest-house-in-dayton/