Did you know: Dayton’s tallest building is so big it has its own ZIP code

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

Local News
By Lisa Powell
Aug 21, 2017
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The Kettering Tower, Dayton’s tallest building, has its own ZIP code: 45423.

At 405 feet tall, the 30-story building, which was originally the Winters Bank Tower, transformed the city’s skyline.

» READ MORE: What you should know about the defining feature of Dayton's skyline

» LIKE TRIVIA? 12 remarkable facts about Dayton history you need to know

The Winters Bank Tower, known now as the Kettering Tower, under construction in 1969. The building is the tallest in Dayton. FILE / DAYTON DAILY NEWS

Credit: Dayton Daily News Archive

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Credit: Dayton Daily News Archive

Tom Schaaf of B.G. Danis Co. guides the final wall panel into place on the 30-story Winters Bank Tower, today called the Kettering Tower. The aluminum and bronze panel measured 28 feet by 5 feet and weighed about 500 pounds. DAYTON DAILY NEWS ARCHIVE April 23, 1971.

Credit: HANDOUT

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Credit: HANDOUT

During the 1969 groundbreaking Frank Anger, the bank board chairman, said the new bank building would meet the needs of the future and that future would include a day “when a checking account customer will have a means of identification enabling him to cash a personal check at any bank in the United States.”

Builders poured more than 3,400 cubic yards of concrete to form the foundation and bolted together 4,000 tons of steel as the building shaped up like a giant erector set over the city.

The Kettering Tower (left), standing at 405 feet tall, is the tallest building in the Dayton. LISA POWELL / STAFF

Credit: Dayton Daily News

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Credit: Dayton Daily News

The exterior is bronzed anodized aluminum with bronze solar glass panels. The complex is 500,000 square feet, about 12 acres.

The son and wife of inventor Charles Kettering, Eugene and Virginia, were the driving force behind the construction of the $15 million building. The pair believed the skyscraper would be a catalyst for downtown growth.

PHOTOS: Images document construction of Dayton’s tallest building
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