The Swaynie House and Building Substitution

In my book Lost Dayton I chronicle not only sites that have been demolished, but also historic landmarks that are still with us, albeit transformed into something completely different from their original use.

But in just about all of those cases, today’s historic buildings were once the new development that replaced some earlier structure.

Delco provides an interesting example of this, given that its first two plants have been saved (one being today’s Delco Lofts, the other Mendelson’s Liquidation Outlet).

These buildings date back to 1912 and 1915, respectively, and are considered notable examples of factory architecture as well as crucial sites in Dayton’s industrial legacy.

But they obviously weren’t the first structures on those sites, and one of the more notable earlier buildings that was demolished for them was the 1839 Swaynie House at East 1st and Canal.

The Swaynie House served as an inn, and its primary clientele was farmers and merchants who arrived with their wares to trade and ship them along the Miami and Erie Canal.

It soon became very popular, and it was a point of pride that all of the carpet in the hotel had been woven nearby by the Dayton Carpet Company.

The visitors were also handsomely appointed, as “the ladies in their hoop skirts and pocket bonnets had a favorite ballroom in the hotel” and “the chief article of distinction of the house was the plug hat.“

Next door was a large wagon yard, which later became part of the Pinneo and Daniels company plant, which made wagon wheels.

In 1840 when then Presidential candidate William Henry Harrison arrived in Dayton to give a campaign speech, the Swaynie House was his first stop, according to Conover’s Dayton Ohio, an Intimate History:

“As the journey had taken all the morning the first thing on the program was dinner at eleven o’clock at the Swaynie House, whence later the distinguished guest was escorted to the “Common,” east of St. Clair Street, where the soldiers had camped in 1812.”

Harrison then gave his speech, which “could be heard clear to the river and by an audience of not less than one hundred thousand people” (Dayton’s population at the time was 7,000).

The Swaynie House was eventually demolished for the construction of Delco’s Plant #2. Here’s the location of where it stood on First St, with Delco/Mendelson’s in its place.

The backs of the buildings that today house Canal St Arcade and Deli (formerly Canal St Tavern), the Southern Belle, and Club Evolution, themselves old industrial factories dating to the 1870s, are visible to the right:

It’s also interesting to consider that the Swaynie House itself also displaced an earlier building on the site, a frame house which was also built by Swaynie:

“On the opening of the canal Alexander Swaynie established a tavern and wagon-yard on the ground now occupied by the Pinneo & Daniels shops. The wagon-yard was full of teams almost every night, and the frame house crowded, the men thinking themselves fortunate when, having brought their own blankets, they could find a space on the floor. Mr. Swaynie made money rapidly, and in 1838 or 1839 erected a three-story brick building on the site of his first frame.” (Pioneer Life in Dayton and Vicinity, 1796-1840.)

The Swaynie House site is a good example of the incremental approach to development that has shaped our cities and towns for hundreds of years. With this pattern, small shacks in speculative locations give way to bigger houses or shops, which are eventually replaced by still larger commercial or industrial buildings as the city becomes more prosperous.

This incremental approach to development was radically changed with the rise of suburbs that are built all at once to a finished state.

Historic image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library