The Insco Apartments is a historic

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

building in

downtown Dayton Downtown Dayton is the central business district of Dayton, Ohio. Major reinvestment in the downtown area began heavily in the mid-1990s, and continues today with $2 billion in residential, commercial, health, and transportation developments that h ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It was designed by

Charles Insco Williams Charles Insco Williams (December 12, 1853 - February 13, 1923) was an artist and architect in Dayton, Ohio. Biography He was born on December 12, 1853, to Mary Forman and John Insco Williams. His father seems to have been an accomplished pain ...

, a native of Dayton, and constructed in 1894. Williams designed the structure after an

apartment hotel An apartment hotel or aparthotel (also residential hotel, or extended-stay hotel) is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "check ...

that he had seen on Fifth Avenue in New York City; he did not copy the design slavishly, but many of the architectural themes present in the Insco Apartments were derived ultimately from the unspecified New York City apartment building.Jennings, Jan.
Cheap and Tasty Dwellings: Design Competitions and the Convenient Interior, 1879-1909
'.

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

: U of Tennessee P, 2005. The Insco Apartments were the focus of an early

historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK), is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...

battle. The location for which they had been planned, at the junction of Main Street and

Monument Avenue Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. ...

, had been occupied since Dayton's earliest days by a still-standing

log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers. Eur ...

. This building had been used for numerous purposes over the past century, including serving as the first

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

and

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

for Montgomery County, the city's first school, its earliest church, and even its first tavern. Opposition to its demolition arose for fear that children might lose the last of what today would be called the

built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human ac ...

of their great-grandparents' day, including this log cabin whose walls still bore bullets from Indian raids. The champion of the save-the-cabin cause was Mary Steele, whose columns in the local paper impelled many influential citizens toward saving the cabin and moving it elsewhere. None of the building's original plans survive; they, along with practically all of the original plans produced by Williams' office, disappeared many years ago. Built of brick on a stone

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

and covered with an

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

roof,,

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2013-11-14. it was constructed to permit Williams to advertise it as "the only fire-proof apartment in southwest Ohio" upon its completion at the cost of $168,000. Instead of simply designing buildings for others' use, Williams embarked on

real estate development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw Real Estate, land and the sale of developed land or parcels ...

, operating the apartment buildings he designed; he would

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

each building soon after its completion in order to obtain money for the next one, and rents from his tenants would finance the mortgage. For many years, this scheme worked admirably, but the chaos during and after the

Great Flood of 1913 The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and ext ...

completely upset it, and Williams' banks

foreclosed Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

on the Insco and other Williams-owned properties as a result. At its centenary, the Insco was accorded national recognition by being placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, qualifying both because of its architecture and because of its place in local history.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Residential buildings completed in 1894 Apartment buildings in Ohio Buildings and structures in Dayton, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Ohio Renaissance Revival architecture in Ohio Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio

See also

References