I always enjoy a good then and now view of the same corner, and it’s even more interesting when we can compare three different scenes as the spot has changed over time.
Today we will do that with the northwest corner of Second and Main Streets in Downtown Dayton, which has been home to two major Dayton staples. But around the turn of the 20th century, it was much more modest.
At that time we would find a 4-story building that dated back to 1836. It was Miller’s Grocery and Meat Market, and at the top of this photo you can see a sign for the James G. Steely & Co. annex.
The building was razed in 1911 and the Rike Kumler department store was built to replace it, which was considered a risk at the time because at the time this was far from the center of downtown retail which was clustered a few blocks south in and around the Reibold Building.
Rike’s traces back to 1853, when David L. Rike and partners opened a dry goods store at 17 E. Third St., later becoming Rike-Kumler Co. Despite the risk of the location, and the Great Flood which hit the following year, the store nevertheless grew into a major local institution and the beloved downtown store for generations of Daytonians, at its peak filling nearly a million square feet across eight floors and offering everything from a restaurant to an in-store hospital and radio station.
The store stayed independent until 1959, when it joined Federated Department Stores, and spent decades competing with rival Elder-Beerman, including antitrust lawsuits in the 1960s. Suburban migration and downtown’s broader retail decline eventually caught up with it: Rike’s merged into Shillito-Rike’s in 1982, then into Lazarus in 1986, ending the Rike’s name. The downtown store closed for good in 1992, and the building was imploded in 1999 to make way for the Schuster Center for the Performing Arts, which stands on the site today.
Historic photos are courtesy of Dayton Metro Library
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