Dayton Beer

Panoramic view of the aftermath of flood and fire in 1913 Dayton. Image from Library of Congress . © Copyright 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney On this date in 1913, days of unrelenting rain culminated in the  Great Flood of 1913 . Nowhere was the destruction worse than in here in Dayton: levees collapsed and destructive floodwaters swept through the center of town. Adding to the calamity, gas lines broke and fires blazed even as rushing waters engulfed the Gem City. Rivers have always played a huge role in the Miami Valley’s history, so it shouldn't surprise us that the region’s greatest natural disaster involved its rivers. But breweries played a role in relief efforts, as I learned while researching my book  Dayton Beer . Up and down the Miami Valley and in surrounding states, the flooding that year was one of the worst natural disasters on record. I grew up hearing stories about it from my parents, who handed them down from their parents, who had gone through it ...

Advertisement in March 22, 1919 Dayton Daily News for sale of Schwind brewery plant. © Copyright 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney No big headlines heralded the news a century ago this week, but an ad in the March 22, 1919 Dayton Daily News signaled the end of an era in Dayton brewing history: The Schwind brewery plant—once known as the Dayton View Brewery—was up for sale.  Prohibition was coming, and Dayton's brewing industry was going.    I learned about the Dayton View Brewery in research for my upcoming book Dayton Beer: A History of Brewing in the Miami Valley . The brewery's story is more than a story about beer, brewing and business. It's a story about a brewer, his legacy and the impact it had on Dayton. What follows isn't an excerpt from my book, but a brief retelling of some of the facts I dug up in my research. Some of the graphics here aren't in my book because of their poor reproduction quality. For half a century, the Dayton View Brew...

© Copyright 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney On October 7, 1861, an advertisement appeared in the Springfield Republic over the name M. W. Vorce. “Springfield Brewery!” its headline trumpeted. What followed was a notice to settle claims against the estate of the brewery’s deceased owner, S. A. Vorce. But the ad made it clear the brewery wasn’t closing: “I am now prepared to pay cash prices for Barley and Rye,” it announced, adding, “I keep constantly on hand, and for sale, a pure article of Ale and Beer, also Barley and Rye Malt and Hops.” In a male-dominated society, anyone spotting that ad—then, or more than a century and a half later, as I did last year at the Clark County Historical Society —might assume M. W. Vorce was the deceased owner’s brother or son. But the title after the name gave it away: “Executrix.” M. W. Vorce’s first name was Martha. She was Silas A. Vorce’s widow, and she was one of several Miami Valley women who became brewery proprietors or the president...