THE 365 PROJECT

604 Xenia Avenue, at the current site of Crome's Architecture

 A cornerstone of the local black community, First Baptist Church founded in 1863 was originally called the "Anti-Slavery Church."

It was also known for holding an event during National Negro History Week, which was started in February 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, and is a precursor to Black History Month. This congregation constructed and moved to a larger building on the corner of Dayton and King Street in the 1990s.

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Click for a PBS video about its Anti-Slavery history.

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The building then became a private home for over 20 years until it was purchased several years ago by Max Chrome, architect for Dave Chappelle’s Yellow Springs developments. After a full renovation, the building serves as the Ohio office for his California-based architectural firm, and regularly hosts art exhibits that are open to the public. 

315 West Davis Street

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In 1945, responding to the fact that there were no restaurants that would serve Black people in the community, Goldie Williams and her husband Hillard “Com” opened Com’s Restaurant as the first interracial eating establishment in Yellow Springs. Specializing in Goldie’s fried chicken, the restaurant flourished for 27 years, and was popular with people of all races and ages. The restaurant later operated as DG’s, Tricia Di’s and Sharon’s.

411 South High Street

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This church was founded in 1866 by a Xenia pastor named Charley Jones, his son and a group of 13 men and women from Yellow Springs. After meeting in different locations, they bought land at High and Davis Streets which at the time was a large black farming community. In the wake of slavery, land ownership was understood to be the path to independence.

As the congregation grew along with the Black population in Yellow Springs, they bought adjacent land and built the current building in the 1970s, and in the 1990s added the Education and Family Life Center as an addition. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church is the only Christian denomination that didn’t break away over doctrine, according to former Central Chapel pastor Rev. Dwight Smith, but rather formed in reaction to the discrimination blacks faced in worshipping at majority-white churches in America’s early years. Social justice and “speaking up for those at the margins” is thus part of the A.M.E. bedrock.”

337 South Stafford Street

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Gabby Mason was an icon in the black community who owned and operated his Pit Barbeque from many locations around town including his home. Mason would welcome neighbors and friends, inviting them with his catchphrase, “It’s nice to be nice; try it.” Villagers still celebrate Gabby Day, promoting the spirit of community and fellowship that Mason shared with villagers. This location was his last home. A plaque over the front door carries his motto.

324 Elm Street

Built in 1847, this building was originally an Episcopal church and later a schoolhouse for Black children in Yellow Springs, part of a network of small neighborhood segregated schools. In 1887 the Ohio legislature passed a law requiring desegregation, and all Yellow Springs elementary students attended the Union School House on Dayton St. together. This is now a private home.

314 Dayton Street

In 1873, Village leaders decided to consolidate elementary schools in this two story brick building. It was initially segregated until 1887 when the Ohio legislature passed the desegregation law. When Mills Lawn Elementary in the 1950s, the building housed Yellow Springs Police and Village offices and later provided artist studios. 

It was recently purchased by comedian Dave Chappelle and is being renovated with Architect Max Crome to house WYSO, the local National Public Radio station and will house a 100-seat performance space for the station. In addition, Iron Table Holdings, Dave Chappelle’s company for his business activities will have its headquarters in the building. The chimney on the lawn was constructed to provide a home for the chimney swifts birds that previously roosted in the building’s chimney which was removed as part of the renovation.

131 North Walnut Street

This home was built in the 1870s for Wheeling Gaunt, a Black man born enslaved in Carrolton, Kentucky in the 1810s. He purchased his freedom in the 1840s and as a laborer, used his savings to invest in real estate. During the Civil War, he sold his property in Kentucky, a slave state, and moved to Yellow Springs where he purchased his first property on Walnut Street. 

By the 1880s he owned all of the east side of the block where his home was located except for the property fronting Dayton Street. He also owned property in other parts of the Village, including 5-acres of farmland. A few months before his death in 1894, he sold the farmland to the Village for $1 with the stipulation that they continue to rent the land and use the proceeds to give flour to widows at Christmas (a tradition the Village still continues). In the 1960s the Village added an additional 4 acres to the site turning it into a public park named after him. Gaunt left the rest of his Yellow Springs property to Wilberforce University. 

In the 20th century, Dayton Street became the primary business district for Black owned businesses. This created a safe corridor for Black residents to know that they would be welcome.

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1. 128 Dayton Street - (now The Gulch) In the 1960s and 1970s, the  Majaga Bar and Jazz Club was owned by Maxine Jones; the name comes from the first two letters of the name Maxine, and their daughters, Jaylyn and Gayle.

2. 124 Dayton Street - This multispace building row was once owned by J.T. Hornaday, a Black man who was Justice of the Peace for Miami Township in the early 1900s.He rented the first floor space for Pemberton’s barbershop; a dentist, Dr. Maurice Pemberton, later owned the row, and owned and lived in the home behind the row of buildings. Hawk’s Shoe Repair, owned by William Hawkins was located in the building from the 1950s to the late 1960s. It was also the location of Stag’s Cleaners from the 1950s to the late 1970s (owned by Leo Stagner); there was a temporary wall between Hawk’s and Stag’s. One of the second floor commercial spaces was used by the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which had a large African American membership

3. 118 Dayton St - Location of Emmett Burk’s Village Barbershop in the 1960s

4. 108 Dayton St - Lang’s Beauty Salon, owned by Darwin Lang from the 1990s to the mid-2000s.

5. Dayton Street at the Bike Trail - in the mid-1800s Fanny and Anderson Hunster owned and operated the Union House Hotel at Dayton Street near the railroad intersection (now the bike path).​

6. 101 Corry Street (Trail Town Brewing) - at different times was the site of Black-owned businesses: The Party Pantry, owned by Jake and Maxine Jones, during which Gabby Mason sold BBQ from a window on the side of the building. It was later the site of the Gypsy Café owned by Guy & Locksley Orr 

Xenia Avenue, behind the Chamber of Commerce's Train Depot

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This bronze statue was unveiled in 2021 to honor the generosity of Wheeling Gaunt. He was born enslaved in Carrolton, Kentucky in the 1810s, purchased his freedom from his white father in the 1840s, and the freedom of his wife Amanda and a 10-year old boy Nicholas, who is believed to have been his son. In 1862 Gaunt moved to Yellow Springs, where he used his savings as a laborer to purchase land and buildings in Yellow Springs, becoming one of the largest Black landowners in Ohio. 

A few months before his death he sold 5 acres of farmland on West South College to the Village for $1, with the stipulation that the Village continue to rent the land to farmers and use the rents to give flour to widows at Christmastime. In the 1960s, the Village added an additional 4 acres to the land when it became Gaunt Park, the primary public park in Yellow Springs. Gaunt left the rest of his Yellow Springs real estate to Wilberforce University.

The statue was created by father and son team Brian and Anthony Maughan, through a creative fundraising process managed by the Yellow Springs Arts Council which raised over $170,000 for the statue and plaza.

On the Corry Street Bike Trail near the intersection with Grinnell Drive

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If you'd like to pass by this spot for a longer walk or on your way out of town you'll see a historical marker on the east side of Corry Road. In 1863 a group of about 30 formerly enslaved people came to Yellow Springs after seizing their freedom when Union Army troops arrived at the Conway plantation in Virginia.

They made their way to Washington, D.C. where slavery had been abolished. Rev. Moncure Conway, a son of the Conway Plantation owners, who had renounced slavery and was pastor of a church in Cincinnati, was visiting friends in Yellow Springs when he received word that Union Troops had arrived at the plantation. He received permission from President Abraham Lincoln to travel to Washington to attempt to locate the formerly enslaved people who had left the Conway Plantation.

He was successful and led them by train to Yellow Springs. Some continued on to other locations, but the group that remained has since been called the Conway Colony. The event is significant because the group “contributed to a large free black population in Yellow Springs, which was unusual for a town of our size at the time,” said Antiochiana historian Scott Sanders. Also, the Conway Colony episode “indicates a certain perceived character of tolerance and acceptance” regarding Yellow Springs even in the 1860s.