January

January

Historical Happenings in and around Piqua during the month of January.

Jan 01-The 1838 volunteer German Engine [fire] Company was organized in Piqua’s south end.
Jan 02-Work began in 1934 to remodel the second floor of the former Schmidlapp Library into a museum.
Jan 03-The Piqua Street Railway Company began its operations in 1890 as the area’s first electrical streetcar company.
Jan 04-The city fire department was motorized in 1915.
Jan 05-In 1909, Mrs. Francis M. Orr, the first woman to serve on the Piqua Board of Education, was elected vice president of the board.
Jan 06-The new 1930 city commission appointed Lester G. Whitney to serve as Piqua’s first city manager.
Jan 07-It was announced in 1952 that the Piqua Heavier-than-Air Society had been formed.
Jan 08-The Piqua Mattress Manufacturing Company advertised in 1886 for dry and clean cornhusks.
Jan 09-John Dabus opened a new blacksmith shop in the corner of Spring and Ash Streets in 1885.
Jan 10-The Kitts Low Water Alarm was organized in 1887.
Jan 11-The Piqua Reading Room Association was organized in 1883 as an attempt at a community library.
Jan 12-Local contractors Miller & Fry received the 1935 contract to build a new consolidated Washington Township School using federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds.
Jan 13-The community’s largest textile company was first organized in 1899 as the Piqua Underwear Company.  The following year L.M. Flesh purchased the company renaming it the Atlas Underwear Company.
Jan. 14-Maurice Wolfe, the president of the Meteor Motor Car Company, took on the presidency of the ailing Favorite Stove & Range Company in 1928.
Jan 15-Battery C, 136th Field Artillery of the Ohio National Guard was federalized in 1952 during the Korean War.
Jan 16-T. H. Foley opened a new Business Night School in 1882.
Jan 17-A local 1827 advertisement announced a reward of one cent for the return of a runaway apprentice.
Jan 18-The Piqua Police announced the first arrest of a local bootlegger since the county went dry on January 1, 1909.  Over forty-nine pints of whiskey were found in a sleigh on South Wayne Street.
Jan 19-A smallpox epidemic broke out in 1905 at the Per Diue Boarding House.
Jan 20-In 1901, the Wayne Street United Brethren Church was formally dedicated.
Jan 21-The Grand Opening of the Piqua Club was held in 1908 on the northeast corner of Greene and Wayne Streets.
Jan 22-The city added a fourth underwear company in 1902 with the incorporation of the Stuart-Brown Underwear Company.
Jan 23-A new firm moved to Piqua in 1918, the Elgin Tractor Company.
Jan 24-Luther Rike was elected president for 1934 of the Springcreek-Washington Township Farmer’s Institute.
Jan 25-The 1886 Art Loan Exhibit opened to the public.
Jan 26-In 1909, local citizens collected $105.00 to provide YMCA memberships to the city’s thirty-five newspaper boys.
Jan 27-Henry Flesh was elected president of the Miami & Erie Canal Association in 1886.
Jan 28-A Civil War veterans’ organization known as the Grand Army of the Republic opened a public reading room in 1887.
Jan 29-In 1899, Lodge No. 152 BPOE (Elks) was established.
Jan 30-Indiana Poet James Whitcomb Riley read his own poetry at an 1888 lecture sponsored by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches.
Jan 31-In 1942, the Church of God offered the first free Sunday bus service in Piqua.