Excerpted from the
History of the Engineers Club Building and Site:
Dayton settlement began in 1796 almost precisely where the present-day Engineers Club now sits. The very first boat traveling up from Cincinnati landed here. Some accounts claim the first person to step on dry land was Catherine Van Cleve Thompson, destined to be the great-great-grandmother to the Wright brothers. One piroque, or flat-bottomed boat, was “re-engineered” to become the first temporary shelter at St. Clair and Water Street, now Monument Avenue, at the other end of the block from today’s Engineers Club of Dayton.
At the dawn of the 20th century, the city of Dayton was much like today’s Silicon Valley—a confluence of engineering talent, Progressive politics, and strong individuals. The “city of a thousands factories” led the US in patents. It pioneered the City Commission style of government, with a civil engineer as city manager, invested with greater powers than the actual mayor.
Then the worst local disaster ever struck. The Great Flood of 1913 killed over 360 residents, and caused over $2 billion in damages (in today’s dollars). Many lost everything.
The city could have withered. Local industries could have abandoned Dayton and sought higher ground. Instead something extraordinary happened. The collective brain power behind those thousand competing factories banded together to rebuild their city and tame the river for good. Dayton became a technocracy, led by its most capable scientific problem solvers.
National Cash Register (NCR) was instrumental in flood rescue and later recovery efforts, raising $2.15 million. Assistant General Manager (and engineer) Edward A. Deeds was put in charge of the flood prevention program and saw completion of the innovative dams of the Miami Conservancy District.
While at NCR Deeds had hired an exceptional young engineer, Charles F. Kettering, to help electrify the cash register. The two struck it rich, assembling a “Barn Gang” of moonlighting engineers into the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, or Delco.
Thirty years prior, Thomas Edison had created the first industrial research lab. The idea spread like electricity. As Deeds put it, “men ought to hunt together,” and he and Kettering replicated this group concept in many forms. Deeds helped create McCook Field, which grew into the Air Force’s main R&D lab, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Delco was sold to GM, founding the General Motors Research Corporation with Kettering in charge.
After their initial Delco success, Deeds and Kettering organized another group, a forum for engineers from across Dayton. On Feb. 20, they proposed an Engineers Club to the local technical community so that Dayton’s engineers and scientists could have the “educational advantages and fellowship facilities they had so greatly missed in their earlier days.” Members and potential employers (like Deeds and Kettering) could also evaluate one another more freely.
Initially the club met in a house owned by Delco a few blocks away at 2nd and Madison. But both club and Delco quickly outgrew the arrangement. Within five years a new club building rose at 110 E. Monument, funded by Deeds and Kettering.
The local firm of Schenk and Williams designed the club building, and also supervised construction. The architects included the latest city steam heat and ventilation, with automated valves and regulators plus electric lighting.
The reserved Orville Wright broke his perennial silence, speaking publicly at the opening on February 2nd, 1918.
To get things rolling quickly, Deeds and Kettering paid for the building themselves in excess of $300,000 and subsidized its maintenance and operations for the first decade. By then membership had grown to the point that the club could be self-sufficient. Talk about self-starters!
The new club building incorporated a number of innovations. A built-in master vacuum cleaning system bore similarities to Orville Wright’s self-designed system at the Wright mansion, Hawthorn Hill. A pneumatic system synchronized the club’s clocks through a bellows, which advanced the minutes & hours via suction or puffs of air. Buttons for the servant enunciator network are still visible around the building.
The Club served unofficially as the initial “Officers Club” for McCook’s Army Air Corps officers. Along with Deed’s leadership, this interchange of aviators and engineers may have helped foster McCook as the Army’s chief R&D center for aviation, later to shift to nearby WPAFB.
In 1925 a cozy Barber Shop was installed upstairs off the Loggia porch, overlooking the airfield across the river. All members, wives and children could get clipped at “usual city prices.” It is unknown how many women trusted their locks to the club barber. The fastidious and private Orville Wright found this the perfect place to get a trim while observing the progress of aviation.
From the History of the Engineers Club website:
Colonel Edward A. Deeds and Charles F. Kettering founded The Engineers Club of Dayton in 1914. At the time, both men realized that Dayton was among the leading industrial cities in the United States due to the various highly-skilled engineers and technicians working in the city. Deeds and Kettering were members of a group known as Barn Gang. The Barn Gang met in a barn on Deeds property to discuss engineering and other scientific issues.
On February 2, 1918, a new building was dedicated. More than 300 Club members and guests were present. Colonel Deeds and Kettering presented the Club to the members. Orville Wright made a rare public speech and accepted the "keys to the property," which he then turned over to the membership. In this speech, Orville emphasized the responsibility of the membership, present and future. Among the list of distinguished guests were Governor James M. Cox, Maj. J.G. Vincent, United States Army, and William B. Mayo.