The Montgomery County Historical Society, located in

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

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 ...

, USA, was designated as official historian of Montgomery County, Ohio, and of the cultural heritage of

Miami Valley The Miami Valley is the land area surrounding the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, USA, and includes the Little Miami, Mad, and Stillwater rivers as well. Geographically, it includes Dayton, Springfield, Middletown, Hamilton, and other ...

. In 2005, the Society merged with Dayton's

Carillon Historical Park Carillon Historical Park is a 65-acre (26.3 ha) park and museum in Dayton, Ohio, which contains historic buildings and exhibits concerning the history of technology and the history of Dayton and its residents from 1796 to the present. As a part o ...

to form

Dayton History Dayton History is an organization located in Dayton, Ohio, USA, formed in 2005 by the merger of the Montgomery County Historical Society (originally the Dayton Historical Society) and Dayton's Carillon Historical Park Carillon Historical Park is ...

. In 1896, a group of citizens gathered at the Old Court House in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

to create an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving the history of the Miami Valley. Their goal was to celebrate the city's

centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at ...

by saving and converting Newcom's Tavern, Dayton's oldest building (ca. 1796), into the community's first history

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

. They called their organization the Dayton Historical Society. The society remained headquartered in Newcom's Tavern for seventy-five years. Newcom's Tavern is now located on the grounds of the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton. In 1968, the society's volunteers took a leadership role in the preservation of another outstanding Dayton landmark, the 1850 Montgomery County Courthouse, the nation's best surviving example of a

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

style courthouse. The Dayton Historical Society became The Montgomery County Historical Society and relocated to the Old Court House. left, Patterson Homestead in Dayton, Ohio In 1977, the City of Dayton asked the society to provide management and museum services for the 1816 Patterson Homestead (Rubicon Farm), home of Dayton's prominent Patterson family and birthplace of John H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Company (now NCR Corporation). Today, the Patterson Homestead is used for educational programming on life in early Dayton. In 1998, the society began management of the NCR

Archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

, a collection of over three million historic documents, photographs, and objects of local, national and international significance, making the society one of the largest historical organizations in the Midwest. The new Miami Valley History Research Center, featuring the NCR Archive, opened in Dayton in 2001.

References

External links

Montgomery County Historical Society, Dayton, OhioMontgomery County Historical Society Collection (MS-005)
a manuscripts collection at

Dayton Metro Library Dayton Metro Library is a multi-branch library system serving 531,687 residents of the Dayton Metropolitan Area. It has 19 locations across the area (as well as two bookmobiles). Almost 5.8 million items were borrowed in 2018. The Dayton Metro Li ...

{{Midwestern U.S. historical societies Montgomery County, Ohio Organizations based in Dayton, Ohio NCR Corporation Historical societies in Ohio