Mission he Montgomery County Historical Society existed for over one hundred years to collect, preserve, interpret, exhibit and teach the Miami Valley’s legacy. It is a major promoter of community pride and will be a key element of continued downtown resurgence. History In 1896, a group of citizens got together at the Old Court House in Dayton, Ohio to create an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving the history of the Miami Valley. Their goal was to celebrate the city’s centennial by saving and converting Newcom’s Tavern, Dayton’s oldest building, into the community’s first history museum. They called their organization the Dayton Historical Society. The Society remained headquartered in Newcom’s Tavern for seventy-five years. In 1968, the Society’s volunteers took a leadership role in the preservation of another outstanding community landmark, the 1850 Montgomery County courthouse, the nation’s best surviving example of a Greek Revival style courthouse. The Dayton Historical Society became The Montgomery County Historical Society and relocated to the Old Court House. Montgomery County designated the Society as official historian of the community’s heritage. In 1977, the City of Dayton asked the Society to provide management and museum services for the Patterson Homestead. Today, the Patterson Homestead is a site for educational programming on life in early Dayton and offers a meeting facility for public and private functions. MCHS began management of the NCR Archive, a collection of over three million historic objects of local, national and international significance, in August 1998, making the Society one of the largest historical organizations in the Midwest. We look forward to the opening of our new Miami Valley History Research Center, featuring the NCR Archive, for public tours in the spring of 2001. BACK TO TOP		Carriage carrying John H. Patterson - Bombay, India (99-02-05)