Triangle Park “A Gathering Place”

Side A: In 1916, Dayton industrialists Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds purchased the “Idylwild” estate of Daniel Eldridge Mead and a larger adjacent tract to save it from development and to create a park for their companies. The resulting “Triangle Park,” opened with a July 4, 1917, picnic for employees and their families. A few weeks later, on July 15, the site became the WWI recruitment site for nearly two hundred men enlisting as “Camp Triangle, Battery D, 1st Ohio Field Artillery.” The park served as the home of company football team the Dayton Triangles and was the site of the 1920 first NFL game. In 1941, Deeds and Kettering gave the park to the City of Dayton to ensure its continued recreational use forever as “a gathering place.” Side B: same