The Journal Herald Building at 111-1119 East Fourth Street has a fascinating history and will soon see new life.
The Windsor Companies, which has already brought new apartments and retail to historic buildings nearby on East Third Street, recently won state historic tax credits for a $11.9 million project to rehab the Journal Herald Building along with the former Price Stores building next door.
According to the development plan, the Journal Herald Building will be converted into 15 apartments.
The Second Renaissance Revival style building located at 111-119 East Fourth Street was built in 1924.
Architectural details include wide spandrels decorated with medallions which divide the bays on on the upper floors. Paired pilasters accent the corners and divide the first and second bays and the fourth and fifth bays. The building’s double door entry is on the left side of the facade and is classically detailed with a decorated frieze, dentil cornice and a transom (Source: Fire Blocks Historic Register Nomination Form).
The building’s most interesting feature, however, can be found on the frieze dividing the first story and the upper floors. There one will find carvings of four individuals who were prominent in the printing trade. These carvings depict Johannes Gutenberg, Benjamin Franklin, William Caxton (the first English printer), and Richard March Hoe (designer of a rotary printing press which revolutionized newspaper publishing).
Upon its completion, the Journal Herald building was close to double the size of the original plan, due to significant growth the paper had enjoyed during the early part of the 1920s.
When the building was erected, the Journal Herald was actually two separate papers, the Dayton Journal (which dated back to 1840 as a daily paper) and the Dayton Herald which had just been established in 1923. The Dayton Journal had previously been located in a building on Jefferson Street.
The building’s grand opening was held on March 7, 1925, and it featured highly unusual fanfare even involving the President of the United States.
At noon, from his office in the White House, President Calvin Coolidge pressed a button that started the “battery of high-speed presses” in the building, thanks to a special direct wire connection provided by Western Union.
The general public was also invited to the opening to enjoy ceremonies and guided tours of the building, and thousands came to marvel at the new modern printing facility.
Even after the fanfare of its opening, the Journal-Herald Building remained dedicated to public service for the Dayton area. One example involved the most popular sporting event of the times, the World Series.
In October of 1925, the newspaper installed a mechanical device known as a “Playograph” directly across from the building to broadcast the World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Washington Senators to the Dayton public.
The spectacle was said to be following the Dayton Herald’s “usual progressive policy of sparing no expense in serving its public.”
The invention was remarkable for the pre-TV era and featured a regulation size ball which was “invisibly suspended in front of a playing field, and as the ball is pitched, batted or fielded in the actual game, the ball on the playograph travels to all parts of the diamond in exact duplication” also showing extra base hits, errors, and all other significant details.
Then in 1932, the Dayton Journal established a special broadcasting studio on the third floor of the building to disseminate election news and results to the public as they came in.
Daytonians had multiple options for following along: on their home radio (half of area households owned a radio at that time); by dialing a special telephone number and asking for election information; or in person downtown where The Journal had installed a large screen to display figures as well as six loud speakers to convey the news directly to those gathered in the street.
At the time, the Journal claimed that “never before has any newspaper or other agency gone to such lengths to give election news.”
In 1949, James M. Cox, who had owned the Dayton Daily News for decades, bought the Journal and the Herald and combined them into one publication.
The Journal Herald became the more conservative morning paper, while the Daily News was the more liberal afternoon paper.
Then in 1957, the Journal-Herald moved its operations to 37 S. Ludlow Street (the now vacant space adjacent to the old Dayton Daily News Building).
Later in 1986, the Journal-Herald would merge with the Dayton Daily News to create a single morning paper for the Miami Valley.
The old newspaper building was rehabilitated in the 1980s, at which point the original windows on the upper floors were replaced.
It later was home to several nightclubs, most recently Hammerjax, but that business closed in 2016 and the building has been vacant ever since.
Sources
Fire Blocks National Register nomination form
“World Series Will Be Shown to Dayton People,” Dayton Herald 9/29/1925
“Journal to Flash Latest Election News to Entire Miami Valley” 11/8/1932
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