This article appeared in the Journal Herald on July 4, 1961
 

A Bit of Nostalgia From Haymarket

Gone But Not Forgotten!
First Brewery Recalled

By Jessie Nicodemus

 

            The old Haymarket area is a ghost town.

            Gone are the familiar stores, shops and rows of houses where generations of Daytonians were born, played, lived and worked.    

            Those passing the now deserted section of east Dayton feel a touch of nostalgia. Many spend a moment remembering how it used to be.

            Karl Bucher, 75, of 1021 Old Orchard avenue, president of the Bucher Printing company, 729 Leo street, remembers the section well.

            His home was on Wayne avenue, overlooking the area. The section was then called Oregon. Among his fondest memories are the afternoons he spent as a child at his grandfather’s business at the corner of Hickory street and Wayne avenue.

            On that site stood a two-story brick building. It housed the first brewery to begin operation in Dayton.

            “Across the street where the Haymarket area stood was once an open area, called the common,” Bucher said, “where residents picnicked, strolled and played games on Sunday. Soldiers drilled there before marching off to the Civil War, my mother said.”

            Bucher’s grandfather, Michael Schiml, started the brewery soon after he immigrated to Dayton, from Germany in 1847. He had to order his yeast culture from Boston. It was brought to Dayton by horse and wagon, and Schiml kept propagating it, so he wouldn’t have to wait the months it would take to bring more halfway across the continent.

            “My grandfather used to sell a ladle full of liquid yeast for two large pennies,” Bucher recalled. “People used it for backing. And grandfather gave the pennies to us.”
            Bucher continued, “He sold a pony of beer, 3 7/8 gallons, for 90 cents. It was delivered by horse-drawn brewery carts.

            “Uncle Pete had his harness shop nearby. It was like most businesses, a small shop in front of his home.

            “The main business district of downtown Dayton was then on East Fifth Street,” he recalled, “and everyone in the area walked downtown to the shop.”

            The rear section of his grandfather’s brewery burned, he said, and the structure was eventually torn down. Two apartment buildings were then erected on the site, but Bucher said “they forgot to fill in the old brewery basement, and the building foundations settled, so those apartments had to come down.”

            The next building on the site was the structure now used by the Blommel Sign company, 735 Wayne Avenue.

            “I think people were happier then,” said Bucher. “They were born and lived and died in the same neighborhood. Families were closer and neighbors were friends. And the neighborhood church was the central meeting place for everyone.”

            Land cleared in the Haymarket area under the East Dayton Urban Renewal program is being sold for redevelopment by the city.

            Soon new homes, businesses, offices and industry will flourish on the site.

            And a complete cycle will have been made in the history of the area.