Interesting places to explore in Oakwood

Oakwood is a city people drive through on their way somewhere else, which means a lot of residents have passed its most interesting places without stopping. Some are famous, some are easy to miss, and most are free. Here are eight worth a closer look, with how to visit each one.

Hawthorn Hill

The Colonial Revival house on the hill at Harman and Park avenues was the home of Orville Wright. Orville and Wilbur both helped plan it, but Wilbur died in 1912, before it was finished. Orville moved in when it was completed in 1914, with his sister Katharine and their father, Bishop Milton Wright, and he lived there until his death in January 1948. NCR then used it as a corporate guest house for decades. It became part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park in 2009 and has been cared for by Dayton History since 2013.

How to visit: the house is not open for walk-up visits. Guided tours, which need advance paid admission, run on Wednesdays and Saturdays and start with a shuttle from Carillon Historical Park in Dayton. Call Dayton History to check availability before you plan the day.

Wright Memorial Public Library

Oakwood's library, on Far Hills Avenue, is a building worth seeing for its own sake. Opened in 1939, it has Tudor architecture, stained glass windows and its original wood shelving, and it is a registered historic landmark. Orville Wright sat on the library board and personally underwrote the campaign to pass the bond issue that built it. A restoration finished in 2018 brought back the original 1939 reading rooms.

This season the library is also showing Breaking the Code: Dayton's Secret Role in WWII, with an Enigma machine, a bombe rotor and other codebreaking artefacts on loan from the National Cryptologic Museum. Outside, look for the Native Pollinator Sun Garden at the southeast corner near Telford Avenue, planted in 2022 with more than 40 species of Ohio plants and registered as a Monarch Waystation.

How to visit: free and open to everyone during library hours.

Katharine Wright Park

Behind the library lies the park named for Orville's sister, established by the Village Council in 1929. It has the feel of an informal garden, with mature trees, flowers and native plants. Look for the stone ruins of an old farmhouse; the house itself was moved, and now stands on Aberdeen Avenue.

How to visit: a public city park, free to wander; the city posts park hours and rules on its website.

The Long-Romspert Homestead

At 1947 Far Hills Avenue stands a yellow stucco house that predates the city around it. Henry Long, who bought 160 acres here in 1856, began the original part of the house in 1863 with brick from a nearby kiln and local timber. A 1920s addition brought an Arts and Crafts wing, a front porch, running water and electricity, and the whole house was stuccoed because the old brick could not be matched. Ethel Romspert left it to the Oakwood Historical Society in 1985. Today its 17 rooms are a house museum, and the summer kitchen still has its original water pump and open-hearth fireplace.

How to visit: regular tours run on the second and fourth Sunday afternoons from May into November and resume around May 2027. In the off-season, the society opens the house by appointment.

Smith Memorial Gardens

On a quiet corner at Oakwood Avenue and Walnut Lane, Smith Memorial Gardens packs a planted garden into less than an acre. It was planted in the 1930s for continuous bloom and draws birds and butterflies; Ohio Magazine once called it a secret treasure on an ordinary side street, and the description still fits.

How to visit: free and open to the public every day.

The Schantz Park Historic District

Oakwood's only neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places sits around East Schantz Avenue, where homes from the 1910s stand beside homes from the 1960s. A historical marker at the southeast corner of Oakwood Avenue and East Schantz Avenue tells its story. Nearby, little Cook Park, at Schenck and Oakwood avenues, stands on land the estate of Adam Schantz, the neighborhood's founder, deeded to the city in 1912 on the condition that it remain a park forever, with no building on it.

How to visit: walk the public streets; the homes themselves are private.

History in the sidewalk

The Oakwood Historical Society has placed markers that are easy to walk past. In front of the Tudor-style City Building at 30 Park Avenue, a sidewalk marker honors Oakwood's first homes, built nearby in 1872. Another, in front of 45 Park Avenue, marks the city's first free-standing public library; the address is now home to The Little Exchange, a gift shop whose proceeds go to Dayton Children's Hospital. Near Far Hills and Hilltop avenues, a marker recalls the Four Mile Tavern, an early-1800s stop named for the four-mile trip from downtown Dayton, demolished around 1912. On Kramer Road, a boulder near the Dayton Country Club entrance remembers William Kramer's mid-1800s wine and pleasure gardens.

How to visit: all are on public sidewalks and free. The society's self-guided driving tour, available as a printable PDF, links them with other stops, including Sugar Camp, the former NCR training camp where Navy WAVES lived during World War II while they worked on codebreaking. It is now a small office park.

Francine's Garden

In the wooded hills of Centennial Park at Houk Stream, on the city's west side, Francine's Garden is a small wildflower garden named in 2009 for Francine van der Hoeven, whose family restored it when they lived on Park Road.

How to visit: a public natural area off Ridgeway, Park and Forrer roads.

Stops along the way

A tour of Oakwood's history pairs well with a stop on Park Avenue. Kubik Fine Books, at 24 Park Avenue, is an antiquarian bookseller with a shop, an online catalogue and appraisals. Lula Bell Whimsical Cards and Gifts, at 23 Park Avenue, sells cards with original artwork by Amy Gantt. Ashley's Pastry Shop, at 21 Park Avenue, has been baking since 1982. And at the north end of town, Tastefully Roasted Coffee on Oakwood Avenue is a short walk from the Schantz Park streets.