STONE QUARRIES IN THE BELMONT AREA

Written by Ed Back, 2001

“The first railroad in this country was owned by Gilmore and Scott.  They used to haul stone from their quarry near the Shakers to Dayton.  It was propelled by mule power and had wooden rails.  We boys used to go out there on the cars and gather paw paws and wild grapes in the woods and brush around the quarry.”

Remembrances of 1837 – Written by Michael Ohmer in 1901

The first settlers in what became Belmont and in other areas southeast of Dayton noticed deposits of limestone sticking out of the ground or found them buried a few feet beneath the soil.  The stone was a nuisance to farmers, though they used a small portion of it in building parts of their houses.  The limestone remained where it was for the time being.

A demand for such stone arose in the first decades of the 1800s with the construction of larger buildings in Dayton, usually commercial or public.  At this time, samples of the limestone southeast of Dayton were gathered and tested.  The results were that this limestone was extraordinarily hard, flint-like in formation, and was, therefore, a quality building material.

Starting around 1820, this stone would be excavated from as many as nine stone quarries in and around what is now Belmont.  The quarrying business would also thrive in other parts of the Dayton area, including Butler and Randolph Townships, and along what is now Old Troy Pike.  Other quarries in Van Buren Township would appear around Beavertown, near what is now the intersection of Dorothy Lane and Wilmington Pike in Kettering.

The demand for the stone was greatly accelerated with the building of the Miami and Erie canal through southwest Ohio (1825-1829).  The stone was ideal for the canal locks in those days before concrete.  The “Dayton stone” became widely known for its quality and quantity and would eventually be transported to Columbus and Cincinnati and to several areas of Indiana.  

The exact year when any of the Belmont area quarries were opened or closed is unknown, but they all head ceased operations by 1900.  Belmont, which was almost all farm land at that time, nevertheless had contributed substantially to a major Dayton industry.

THE DICKEY QUARRY

The oldest and one of the largest stone quarries in the Belmont area existed near what is now Cleveland School north of Wayne Ave.  This quarry eventually covered 20 acres.  The first quarrymen here were Gilmore and Scott.  One major problem for quarries in Van Buren Township was transporting the large, heavy stones from the quarry.  All of the roads in the township were dirt which became quagmires of mud in wet weather.  Gilmore and Scott’s solution to this problem as to build the first railroad in the Dayton area in the 1830s (The first “iron” railroad did not arrive until 1851).

The railroad had tough hickory rails supported by stone from the quarry.  The wheels of the flat bed cars which carried the stone were grooved so they would fit snugly over the wooden rails.  Leaving the quarry, the railroad followed low land in a northerly direction, crossing Linden Ave. to East Third St., then along the south side of East Third to a stone dressing facility on Third between Wayne Ave. and the canal (now Patterson Blvd).  Teams of horses would pull the cars on level ground or rising grades.  On descending grades, the cars would be allowed to roll on their own momentum.  How long this railroad was used is unknown, perhaps for the duration of the quarry.  Remains of it could still be seen into the 20th century in Kley’s Woods in what is now Cleveland Park, adjacent to Cleveland School.

The Gilmore and Scott quarry had been purchased by the Dickey and Shafer Company in 1850.  Thereafter, this quarry was popularly known as the Dickey quarry.  In addition to stone quarrying, William Dickey and his brother Robert R. engaged in several other businesses, including brick manufacturing for the canal.  William Dickey also owned 75 acres in Belmont, almost all of the land bordered by what is now Wayne Ave., Smithville Rd., Watervliet Ave. and Pershing Blvd.  It is possible that Dickey made bricks on this land since by 1895 there was a brickyard there, then owned by an A. Aman.

The stone from this large quarry was judged as “fair but not excellent.”  Some of it may still be seen as part of the old Courthouse in downtown Dayton.  The stone was also used in the construction of the following:

Locks from the Miami and Erie Canal.

Dayton’s first apartment house called the “Seven Smokes” on Ludlow St.

The Farmer’s College in Cincinnati.

William Dickey died in 1880, and the quarry ceased operations by the 1890s.  It is interesting to note that the Shafer name continued in the quarrying business, as an 1895 map shows a Shafer quarry near the northwest corner of what is now Wilmington Pike and Dorothy Lane in Kettering.

THE FRYBARGER QUARRY

Another early quarry was the Frybarger Quarry, owned and operated by Valentine Frybarger.  According to early maps, the quarry was located in or near what is now Belmont Park, perhaps in the low area of the park where the baseball diamonds are located.  The quarry was opened a few years after the neighboring Dickey quarry and would eventually cover 10 acres.  The stone, like that of the Dickey quarry, was judged as “fair but not excellent.”

The Frybarger family home was located a short distance north of the quarry on land now occupied by the Belmont Baptist Church near the intersection of Meriline and Pleasant View Aves.  The house was razed around 1969, but posts made of quarry stone still exist at the entrance to the church parking lot.  Early historians differ over whether the stone for the Frybarger house came from the Dickey or Frybarger quarry.  Nevertheless, this home was the first one in Van Buren Township to have quarry stone used in its construction.

Stone from the Frybarger quarry, like that from the Dickey quarry, was used in the construction of the old Courthouse in Dayton and the locks for the canal.  This quarry was probably closed by the time of Valentine Frybarger’s death in 1873.  Mrs. Katherine Richman Walton, and early resident of Belmont, remembers the following:  “There was a huge quarry by Smithville, in back of the Immaculate Conception Church.  My grandfather built an ice house, and they used to go back there with horses and cut the ice for the ice house.  My father almost drowned there while he was showing off.  The Ohmers used to skate there.”

THE FAUVER QUARRY

Another productive quarry in the Belmont area was the Fauver Quarry, which was owned and operated by Allen Fauver.  It was located west of Wilmington Ave. and north of Patterson Rd. in the general area where Horace Mann School now stands.  By the 1870s, Allen Fauver had sold his quarry to partners named Lehman and Weber, but the quarry would always be known as the Fauver quarry.  The quarry eventually grew to cover 18 acres and would last until at least the 1880s.  Lehman and Weber became the largest dealers of stone in the Belmont area, earning as much as $80,000 a season.

The Fauver quarry produced the largest pieces of stone in Van Buren Township (one historian claimed they were the largest in Ohio).  Columbus made a large contract with the quarry in 1884 to supply stone for their arsenal and State Insane Asylum.  The stone was also used for the construction of Col. Doup’s hotel in Dayton (c. 1885) and for the jail in Tipton, Indiana.  The pond left by part of the quarry was filled in around 1940.

As you will see, several members of the Fauver family were quarrymen in the Dayton area.  At different times, John and Allen Fauver operated the Wead quarries; Allen owned and operated the Fauver quarry; Samuel operated the Spring Summit quarry.

THE BOSSLER QUARRY

Another pond which marks the remains of a quarry is what is popularly known as Kunz’s Pond, which is adjacent to Belmont’s only high-rise, the Lakewood Apartments at 980 Wilmington Ave.  The pond is now Belmont’s largest and is due east of the former Fauver quarry across Wilmington.  Kunz’s Pond was named after Fred Kunz who owned the pond in the early 1900s.

This quarry was originally known as the Harshman Quarry, named after the first operator; the land, however, was owned by J. P. Bradford.  Marcus Bossler took over the operation later, and he would own the land jointly with the Bradford family.

The Bossler quarry has the distinction of being one of two Belmont quarries to produce what was judged as the best building stone in the Dayton area.  The stone was used mostly in Dayton, including part of Dayton’s “new” courthouse which was built in the 1880s.  (The “new” courthouse, which was razed in 1972, was directly north of the “old” courthouse which still stands at the corner of Third and Main Sts.)

THE HUFFMAN QUARRY

The other Belmont quarry which produced the best stone in the Dayton area was located on what is now Nordale Park.  It covered land from Nordale Ave. northward to the asylum border and eastward to what is now the Belmont Nursery.  This quarry and the Bossler quarry have other similarities.  Both were originally operated by Harshman and both supplied stone for Dayton’s “new” courthouse and other buildings in Dayton.  This quarry also supplied stone for the construction of the asylum buildings.  William Huffman later took over its operation.  Neither Harshman nor Huffman owned the land.

The remains of the quarry became a large pond.  According to Mr. Howard Rigg, a house sat on a peninsular of sorts in the pond.  The occupants’ name was Hutchins or Hutchings.  The pond was drained around 1940 and filled in with debris, including street bricks and old car bodies.  The decompensation of some of the debris made part of the fill unstable.  After the running track south of Belmont High School was built, the track started to sink and had to be rebuilt.

THE SPRING SUMMIT QUARRY

Former Belmont area quarries existed near both ends of King Ave.  On the north was the Dickey quarry, and on the south was a quarry known as the Spring Summit Quarry.  The quarry was given this name because it lies on a dividing ridge between the two Miami rivers.  Water from springs on the east side of the ridge flow toward the Little Miami River, and water from springs on the west side flow toward the Great Miami River.

The Spring Summit was one of the last quarries excavated in the Belmont area.  It was located near the south end of King Ave., was of the Huffman quarry across from Revere Ave.  It was originally on the property of L. R. Jones.  The quarry would eventually grow to almost 20 acres, thus rivaling the Dickey quarry in size.  It had a working face (surface) of 1500 feet from north to south, the largest face of any Belmont quarry.  The stone from it was originally judged as “extra good quality;” later, as “medium quality.”  By the 1880s, it was being operated by Samuel Fauver.

It is unknown the use and destination of the stone from this quarry.  When the quarry was exhausted, some of it, like the Bossler and Frybarger quarries, became a pond.  The pond was soon as popular swimming and fishing spot.  Around 1940, it was then drained and filled with landfill when King Ave. was completed to Morse Ave.  As with the Huffman quarry, some of the landfill was not “clean,” with stories of old cars and appliances being used as fill.   Some of the houses and other structures built over this unstable landfill encountered places where the earth would sink.  A house on a vacant lot on the east side of the 2400 block of King, between Haskins and Morse Ave., began to sink due to the unstable earth and was razed in the late 1990s.

THE WEAD QUARRIES

You can readily see a pond just south of 10 Wilmington Place.  Two other smaller ponds also existed to the east of this pond well into the 20th century.  One pond has been filled in; the other one is likely the one adjacent to Hospice of Dayton.  We originally assumed that these ponds were the remains of the Wead (pronounced “Wade”) Quarries.

There is evidence, however, that the Wead quarry which was featured in old newspapers articles was in Beavertown (which is now part of Kettering, along Wilmington Pike in the vicinity of Dorothy Lane.)  This quarry was near the southwest corner of Wilmington and Dorothy Lane.  By 1851, one of Robert Wead’s sons (J Wead) owned 100 acres of land at the northeast corner of Wilmington and Dorothy Lane.  An 1895 maps shows the quarry near the southwest corner.

The newspaper articles state the following about the Wead quarries:  “John and Allen operated the Wead quarries.  These quarries had one major customer – Hamilton County.  The Commissioners of this county, after a lengthy search, decided that the stone from the Wead quarries was the best be found for the construction of their courthouse in Cincinnati.  They therefore leased the Wead quarries until the courthouse was completed.   During this time, up to 100 workers were employed at the quarries at the same time.  One historian suggests that these quarries were not exhausted of their stone at the time of their closing.”  The remains of the quarry in Beavertown became a pond which existed until at least the 1960s.  It was then filled in and is now a large, grassy area along the west side of Rushland Dr., south of Dorothy Lane.

Robert Wead and his family settled near Beavertownh in 1799.  The Wead family also owned large parcels of land on both sides of Wilmington Ave., south of Wayne Ave.  It was from the Weads that the state bought the property for the asylum.  Also, the 1875 Montgomery County Atlas states that Robert Wead “lived near the asylum for 67 years.”  He died in 1873.

So what about the ponds near 10 Wilmington Place?  Were these also Wead quarries?  The newspaper articles indicated that there was more than one Wead quarry.  The ponds were on Wead property during the time of the quarries.  Stone taken from quarries in this location would have been convenient for the construction of the nearby asylum.  There is no proof, either written or oral, that these were once quarries.