The “Y2K bug” was a dud, and our computers kept plugging away, but until the clock struck midnight, no one knew for sure what would happen when the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000.
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For this edition of Vintage Dayton, we went into the archives to see how the Dayton Daily News covered Y2K and how local officials spent more than a year preparing for the unknown.
More on December Dayton history
• Clifton Mill’s long history includes more than holiday lights
• A week before Christmas in 1953, a midday robbery turned Dayton upside down
Did you know?
Here are a few great Dayton history facts we’ve learned from our stories:
• The Elder Beerman founder worked daily in the office until his late 80s.
Thomas Elder liked to go into the office each morning before he went on an afternoon drive.
• St. Benedict the Moor school in Dayton is celebrating 100 years.
The building opened in 1924 and has gone by other names, including Resurrection School and Mary Queen of Peace.
• Billy Strayhorn, who was a composer and musician with Duke Ellington and wrote some of the best-known jazz songs of the age, was from Dayton.
Strayhorn, frail little “Baby Boy Strayhorn” on his birth certificate, was born in Dayton early on Nov. 29, 1915, at Miami Valley Hospital.
• Dayton’s beloved Ivy Lounge was an ice company before it was a restaurant.
The Ivy Lounge was opened by brothers Art and Barney Rivers after they converted their Riverdale Ice Co. into the restaurant in 1950. It closed in 2006.
We want your help!
Do you have any requests or ideas that you would like to see us cover in this history newsletter?
What about cool old photos or stories of your own?
Let us know and we’ll include them in future newsletters.
After seeing a note in our This Week in Dayton History feature about the contest to name the new University of Dayton sports mascot in 1980, a reader wrote in asking for more information about Rudy Flyer and how he has changed over the years.
• Click here for our story: Rudy Flyer turns 44: The history of the Dayton Flyers mascot
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Thank you for reading.
