Entering the WABAC Machine…

It’s not exactly the same as having Mr. Peabody around, but having a computer does allow me to store recent history and go back to it.  So I’m going to set my WABAC Machine for June 28, 2014 and travel back in time to Dayton, Ohio, when my brother Rob took my daughter Carrie and me to Carillon Historical Park.  Thanks, Rob!

Carillon Historical Park contains historic buildings and exhibits about the history of technology highlighting the roles that Dayton played in that history from 1796 to the present.   So here we go.

One of our first stops was at Locust Grove School No. 12 (circa 1896).  The elementary school I went to when I was a kid had desks like that.  I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

You can see that the biology lessons were a little different though.

Self-portrait in a chrome ball.  This was taken in the old power station.  If you look closely you can see me, Rob and Carrie.

I love this dress.  It was part of an exhibit about the Dayton Flood of 1913 when the Great Miami River overran its banks.  More than 360 people were killed in that flood but apparently this dress survived.

Dayton has had a long history with bicycles.  Did you know that the Wright Brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton?  You can still see it today.  But something I didn’t know, in spite of growing up around there, was that Huffy Bikes came from Dayton.  It all began when George P. Huffman bought the Davis Sewing Machine Co. and moved the company to Dayton.  They made their first bicycle in Dayton in 1892.  Here are a couple of posters from the bicycle exhibit in Carillon Park.

And isn’t this just the coolest bike ever?  The Huffy Radio Bike was manufactured in 1955 and 1956.  Why they ever quit making this one is beyond me.  I was too young for one of those in 1956, but I sure would have thought that was the coolest thing ever in 1960.

Of course, probably the most famous of all Daytonians were the Orville and Wilbur Wright, “whose gift of powered flight lifted the world forever skyward.”  This bench is in memory of them.

A duplicate of this bench is in Woodland Cemetery where the Wright Brothers are buried.  I took a photo of Carrie sitting on the bench in 2010.

And last but not least, they have the coolest carousel there. The seats that are not standard carousel horses have some relationship to Dayton.  Like this seat that represents National Cash Register, a company that was founded in 1884 and was located in Dayton until they moved to Duluth, Georgia in 2009.

This is Scipio, Orville Wright’s St. Bernard.  I found this blurb about Scipio on the St. Bernard Club of America’s website:  He bought this dog from White Star Kennels in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1917, for $75.00 as a puppy. According to Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, at the time of his death in 1948, Orville still had pictures of this dog in his wallet.

But this one would be the one I would ride on if I were a fan of going round in circles.  I still think that Mikesell’s Potato Chips are the best in the world.  We used to get big tins of these delivered to the house when I was a kid.

  No wonder I’m fat.

The Carillon Park Bell Tower.

Soon after leaving Carillon Park, Carrie and I jumped back into the WABAC Machine and drove into the 21st Century in style.

The End.