About Us

Board of Directors

The Executive Board of the Miamisburg Historical Society meets on the third Thursday of the month at the History Center. Meetings are open to the public. 

Committees

Historical Research Resource Committee (HRRC)

Linda Bernard (chair)

Laurel Benner, Sandi Postle

History Center greeters/docents

Judy Wuerstl (coordinator)

Don Boyer, Joan Boyer, Kendall Clay, Jan Dobson, Sally Ermlich, Annie Gilkerson, Linda Leas, Brenda Robinette Hill, Vickie Shortal, Diane Warrick, Jeane Toadvine

Information Technology (IT)

Kim Izor (chair)

Susan Martin, Laurel Benner

Ways & Means

John Warrington (co-chair)

Ted Fink (co-chair)

Lee Hieronymus

Programs

Martha Ballinger (chair)

The Tavern Log newsletter

Ken Ballinger (editor)

Social Media, Publicity, Website

Ken Ballinger (chair)

Susan Martin

Laurel Benner

Curator

Kim Izor

Children's Programs

Judy Wuerstl (chair)

Carolyn Kilpatrick

Heritage Village

Susan Martin (coordinator)

Jeanette Belvo, Annie Gilkerson

Veterans

Ryan Colvin (chair)

Laurel Benner


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Membership

Sandi Postle (chair)

Our home: the Miamisburg History Center

Located at 35 South Fifth Street, in beautiful Veterans Memorial Park, local residents will remember this unusual structure as the former Miamisburg branch of the Dayton-Montgomery County Library. Renovation began in August 2019 thanks to a generous $70,000 donation from the Miamisburg Bicentennial. 

The History Center was dedicated in December 2019 and is the home of the Miamisburg Historical Society and its collection of thousands of archives and artifacts. Our facility is fully handicap accessible and there is ample parking in the lot behind the building. Open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Our Rich History

The first settlers in this area were a mysterious race called the Adena people. They built earthworks between three and ten feet high and fifty feet wide at the base, which enclosed their village, the area that now comprises downtown Miamisburg.

Centuries later, the valley between the Great and Little Miami Rivers was the hunting grounds for the Miami Indians, a tribe of the Miami Confederation. Their villages were located on the west side of the river a short distance north of town.

When the Greenville Treaty was signed in 1795, essentially ending the Indian resistance in the Northwest Territory, settlers began arriving in the lush Miami Valley. Zachariah Hole came with his family from Virginia in 1797. He built a stockade on the east bank of the Miami River opposite the mouth of Bear Creek. Following Hole's family were other settlers who lived within the stockade until their own cabins could be built on property given them by land grants from the federal government.

On February 20, 1818, Drs. John and Peter Treon, Emanuel Gebhart and Jacob Kercher, offered for sale ninety lots on the East bank of the river. Thus Miamisburg ("Miamis" recognizing the local tribe and "burg" meaning town) came into existence, the only city by that name in the world.

Celebrating the past, informing the future