Early Belmont Businesses

Businesses in the Belmont area can readily be traced back to 1928 when the Belmont streets were added to the Dayton City Directories.  Some of the businesses can be traced back to earlier in the 1920s from ads in the Belmont School newspapers, the Belmont United Brethren Church Directories and the Fairmont High School Yearbooks.

Beyond these sources, we must rely on the personal memories of people who lived or worked in Belmont in the first decades of the 1900s.  Fortunately, a few people (some their 90s) were able to tell us when and where businesses were located in Belmont prior to 1928.  Joyce Grabill located these people in 1998 and here are some of their memories.

Pauline Stein Binns   Her son-in-law John Fowler was able recall most of the businesses and residences as they were on Smithville Rd, just south of Watervliet, in 1910.  She also supplied us with  a few wonderful pictures of the area in the 1920s.  From her pictures  Haines’ Drug Store , was identified as the little-known building situated behind the traction station.

Kathryn Richman Walton  Was a great wealth of knowledge of early Belmont.  From her memory of her father, we know that Kurtz’s Grocery Store was at the corner of Smithville and Bellaire by 1913.  In 1910 this location was a vacant lot , so it is assumed this grocery store was built between 1910 and 1913.  Mrs. Walton also verified the location of the Frybarger stone quarry in the present Belmont Park.

Jim Clark  This pharmacist bought the drug store from J. P. Cherrington in 1942.  He did not know when Cherrington’s began, but Mrs. Binns remembers it being there in 1923. Mr. Clark said his business had strong soda fountain sales .  The business was closed in 2018 and reestablished as Clark’s Compounding Lab in Huber Heights.  

Martha DeWitt Thompson  Her family moved to 2345 Smithville (west side, between John Glen and Highridge) in 1915.  She told us that Cherrington’s Drug Store was not at the corner when she started walking from her home to Belmont school in 1916.  As a girl, she remembers the Breidenour Dairy near the southeast corner of Smithville and Woodbine (the Breidenour house still stands at 2201 Smithville at the corner of Woodbine).  She also remembers the Jordan and Hopkins farms across Smithville from her house.

Bill Bohrer  Mr. Bohrer’s grandfather, Joseph E. Bohrer, moved to Belmont in 1906.  When he died, his son (Mr. Bohrer’s father) inherited the property and started the Belmont Nursery between 1922 and 1924.  Bill worked at the nursery for 52 years and eventually became the proprietor.  He retired in 1996 and still lives on Nordale Ave., adjacent to the nursery.

Joanne Hopkins Allbrecht   Her grandfather, J.A. Smith, started the Smith Dry Goods & Notions Store at the southeast corner of Watervliet and Smithville around 1917.  This store preceded Wunderlich’s Dry Goods store at the same location.  She has also given us wonderful pictures of the area around Smithville and Watervliet, including the earliest pictures we have of the traction station and Burke’s Grocery (where Foltz’s Bakery would be located).

Verda Denlinger Dietz  HeWar father-in-law, Frederick “Pop” Dietz, was a blacksmith who moved to Belmont in 1917.  The family home was at 1021 Watervliet, the small tan-colored house next to the Belmont Belvedere Apartments.  From 1917 to 1924, Mr. Dietz’s blacksmith shop was located across the street from his home, where the house at 1004 Watervliet now stands.  From 1924 until he retired in 1942, his shop was in the rear of his home.  Mr. Dietz showed the horse being used to pull wagons of produce from the State Farm, up Watervliet, to the Asylum.  He also made heavy bolts and hinges for large barns and shed doors, metal frames for utility trailers and plowshares

Howard Rigg  By 1918, his father, Jacob Rigg, had started the Rigg’s Sheet Metal Co., on Morse (formerly Prugh) Ave., behind the building at the southeast corner of Watervliet.  He moved the shop that year to a building behind the Riggs’ home at 715 Nordale.  In 1938, Jacob paid the City of Dayton to extend Westfield Ave south from Morse to Nordale, so that his shop would be more accessible to a street.