Five Points and Wolf Creek


Best known as the home of Paul Laurence Dunbar, renowned African American poet and author, and Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the airplane, the Five Points and Wolf Creek neighborhoods developed as a Dayton streetcar suburb in the half century following the Civil War. Known as “Mexico” and later as “Miami City,” the area was annexed to the city of Dayton in 1869. Connected to the city by five streetcar lines, it attracted increasing numbers of middle class residents who left the old city center to reside in the new western suburb. Soon West Third Street became a bustling commercial center with a multitude of shops, theaters, social halls and market places. This district provided new economic opportunities to many Jewish businessmen who thrived in the expanding West Side. Taking advantage of low land prices, Dayton industries also came to the new suburb, bringing jobs as well as a new ethnicity to the area.

Five Points/Wolf Creek became home to a diverse urban population, including the Hungarians of the West Side Colony. In 1898, Jacob Moskowitz, an immigrant Hungarian Jew, began to recruit workers for the West Side operation of the Malleable Iron Company of Dayton. He settled these workers in the West Side Colony, an area bounded by Broadway, West Third, and Paul Laurence Dunbar Streets and Wolf Creek. The Colony was home to about 6,000 immigrants, including large numbers of Hungarians, Rumanians, and other Eastern European groups. Within the Colony, a host of businesses, churches, and social and fraternal organizations sprang up to meet the needs of this community, contributing to the growing ethnic diversity of the West Side.

In the years following World War I, the area emerged as the cultural and commercial center of Dayton’s African American community. Although there were small numbers of African Americans on the West Side early in its history, their numbers began to increase dramatically during World War I when large numbers of blacks began to migrate from the southern states. This migration, coupled with growing segregation policies, led to the heavy concentration of Dayton’s black population on the West Side. West Fifth Street became the business and cultural center of a vibrant African American community.

Black-owned businesses such as the Palace and Classic theaters, institutions such as the YMCA and Linden Center, along with a variety of shops, restaurants and doctors’ offices, built a strong African American community which remains an important part of Dayton’s heritage.

Today the community is experiencing revitalization as it works to combine innovative housing strategies with other cultural facilities to become a viable urban neighborhood and a national historic resource.


Points of Interest in Five Points and Wolf Creek

ZION BAPTIST CHURCH, 40 Sprague Street, was organized in 1870 and is Dayton’s oldest African American Baptist congregation. The first church building was erected at 40 Sprague Street in 1876. The present Sprague Street building, designed by architect E. J. Mountstephen, was built by black contractors William Lucius Avery and William Daugherty in 1906. The extension of Edwin C. Moses Boulevard caused the congregation to relocate to 1684 Earlham in 1984.

LINDEN CENTER, 334 Norwood Avenue, is Dayton’s oldest recreation center organized to serve the city’s African American population. It began in 1906 when the Reverend E. T. Banks opened his backyard to neighborhood children as a playground facility. In 1914, the center was relocated to a house and lot at the corner of Norwood Avenue and Pease Street. In 1926, Captain Robert Mallory was appointed Executive Secretary, and began to promote a three-fold program of cultural development and character building, athletics, and neighborhood assistance. In 1928, he secured passage of a tax levy to expand the center. The present building was dedicated in March 1931.

YWCA, 800 West Fifth Street. A group of local black women, including Jessie Hathcock and Louise Troy, organized the Women’s Christian Association #2 in 1893. Initially meeting in Eaker Street A.M.E. Church, the organization purchased this building in 1909. The WCA #2 became affiliated with the national YWCA organization in 1918. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Now located on Dayton-Liberty Road, the West Side YWCA holds the distinction of being the oldest operating black YWCA in the country.

MALLORY HOUSE, 803 West Fifth Street. This Queen Anne style house was the residence of Captain Robert H. Mallory, known for his tireless efforts on behalf of Dayton’s African American community. Following exemplary military service as a captain in World War I, Mallory served as Executive Director of the Linden Center for seventeen years, devoting his life to furthering the interests and quality of life of Dayton’s black community.

YMCA, 907 West Fifth Street, was organized in 1889 and is one of the oldest black YMCA’s in the country. Through the efforts of several leaders in the black community, including Captain Robert Mallory, Edward T. Banks, and Dr. Lloyd Cox, this facility opened on New Year’s Day, 1928. In 1978, the YMCA relocated to a new facility on Dayton-Liberty Road.

MCKINLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 96 Hawthorn Street. The oldest church in the Five Points neighborhood, McKinley United Methodist began in 1887 as a mission on Hawthorn Street. At the turn of the century, a donation by President William McKinley resulted in the expansion of the facilities, and the church was renamed in his honor. The present building was completed and dedicated in 1923.

TABERNACLE BAPTIST CHURCH, 380 South Broadway Street. Organized in 1929, Tabernacle Baptist Church worked to establish unity among the large numbers of blacks migrating to Dayton in this period. They purchased the building at Broadway Street and Home Avenue in 1929. The present building was erected in 1962.

SMITH FUNERAL HOME, 368 Broadway Street, was established in 1946. Present owner Rachel Smith-Blye, the widow of founder Clarence Smith, was the first African American woman to be licensed as a funeral director in Dayton.

PALACE THEATRE, Fifth and William Streets, was a major entertainment center of Dayton’s African Americans, who were barred from downtown theaters. Part of the West Side Community Center complex, which included the Granada Ballroom and Cotton Club, the Palace brought movies, stage shows, musical presentations, and vaudeville acts to the West Side community. Opened in 1927, its heyday lasted through the late 1950’s, when desegregation expanded the entertainment options open to the black community.

WRIGHT HOME SITE, 7 Hawthorn Street. The brothers lived at the Wright home on Hawthorn Street until 1914. In 1936, the house was purchased by the Edison Institute and moved to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

HOOVER BLOCK, 1016 West Third Street, was built in 1890 by Zachary T. Hoover. Wright & Wright Printers was located on the second floor from 1890 to 1895. Here the Wright brothers printed neighborhood papers, church and community groups minutes, and their own newspaper, The Snap Shot, and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s newspaper, The Tattler. The building is part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park.

WRIGHT CYCLE COMPANY, 22 Williams Street. Built in 1886, this building housed in turn a grocery, a saloon, and a boarding house before become the Wright’s cycle shop from 1895 to 1897. The Williams Street cycle shop is the last remaining site in Dayton relating to the Wright brothers’ bicycle business, which preceded their experiments with powered flight. The Wright Cycle Company is a National Historic Landmark and is a part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park.

HOLY NAME CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SCHOOL, 408 North Conover Street. In the 1890’s, Hungarian immigrants, recruited to work in Dayton’s industries, began settling on the West Side. In 1895, Hungarian Catholics established the Holy Name Society, which greatly expanded in numbers after the Dayton Malleable Iron Company established the West Side Colony in 1898. The church was built in 1907, and the school and rectory were added in 1914.

FIRST MAGYAR REFORMED CHURCH/ HUNGARIAN EVANGELICAL AND REFORMED CHURCH, 626 Blaine Street. In 1898, labor contractor Jacob Moskowitz established the West Side Colony, bringing in large numbers of Hungarians, Rumanians, and other Eastern Europeans to work for the Dayton Malleable Iron Company. The Hungarians founded the First Magyar Reformed Church that same year. They remained at that location until the early 1970’s. They are now located in Huber Heights. Today, the church building is the home of Mount Zion Church of God Holiness.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR HOUSE MUSEUM, 219 Paul Laurence Dunbar Avenue. Celebrated poet, author and lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar purchased this house in 1903 for himself and his mother after he had achieved national and international fame. Following his untimely death in 1906, Dunbar’s mother Matilda, “Mother Dunbar,” remained a prominent figure in the community for thirty years. In recognition of Dunbar’s accomplishments, the State of Ohio purchased the property for the Ohio Historical Society in 1936. On June 27, 1938 the house was dedicated as a museum

MOUNT ENON MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, 1501 West Third Street. Established in 1926, the Mount Enon congregation purchased their first building on Germantown and Bank Streets in 1926. They moved to their present location in 1962.


BACK TO TOP