The Conover Building can be found at the SE corner of Third and Main Streets right in the middle of downtown.
An eclectic Renaissance Revival style structure, it was designed by architect Frank Mills Andrews, who gave himself an office under an art glass rotunda on the building’s 13th floor.
In fact, Andrews made one of the most significant contributions to Dayton’s built environment around the turn of the 20th century, as he designed nearly all of NCR’s Buildings, the Dayton Arcade, the Reibold Building, and many more around town.
Built in 1900, the Conover Building was expanded a couple of decades later, and it was renovated and restored again more recently to become the new RTA Headquarters.
This building is similar to its neighbor at the other end of the block on Main Street, the Centre City, in that it represents incremental progress and building substitution on the same lot. In that case, it was the United Brethren Publishing House that began with a 4-story building to house its publishing operations.
And here, the site had been owned by the Conover family since 1811 when Obadiah Conover first built a small blacksmith shop at the same corner. That was replaced by the “old” Conover Building, a 4 story structure, in 1855.
That building was razed in 1899 for the Conover Building that we see today.
The present structure was also known as the American Building due to being owned by the American Savings and Loan Co for a time until that business went bankrupt.
The Conover Building was also formerly home to familiar stores including Maud Muller and Getz Jewelers as well as the Red Fox Restaurant.
The building was expanded in 1921 and 1926, and you can compare the two images here to see the original building which was only 2 bays wide on the 3rd Street side. Below the addition is clearly distinguishable.
The caption to this image also gives some interesting context: “The home store on the left was destroyed by fire in February 1926. The second building on the left was known as the old No 10, one of the early notorious saloons and gambling places. It was also known as Sayer Hall.”
None of these neighbors of the Conover Building survive to this day, with one interesting exception: the facade to the very far left can today be seen on the opposite (Main St) side.
This was the Lafee Building built in 1886 which was razed but the facade was incorporated into the RTA headquarters project along with another structure that previously stood on 2nd and Main.
For more on that, read my article on these two saved historic facades with more history and images.
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