Book Description

The Land Across the River tells the story of the first 150 years of history of the West Side of Dayton - from 1799 to just a little past Orville Wright's death in 1948. This book is a little different than what I normally write. There are no chapters, but instead events flow more or less in chronological order. Notes are included at the end of the book that will allow readers to know where they can find more information. A book with ten times as many pages as this one could have been written and would still barely have touched the amazing history of the West Side. Because of this, much of the focus is on the area now known as the West Third Street Historic District, where most of the action took place during the time period this book covers. It tells about the personalities of some of the people who lived there: like the bicycle makers who also built and flew the first practical airplane, the first black poet to garner national acclaim, the patent medicine makers who claimed to cure almost every disease known to man and the publisher who was known to reprint books without regard as to whether it was legal for him to do so. It speaks of the West Side Colony, made up of workers from Hungary and Rumania who were recruited to work at the Dayton Malleable Iron Company. All this, and much more, will be found inside. I hope you are surprised as much as I was at how fascinating the history of the West Side is.