Dayton Shows Off Its Best For Big Tour On Saturday

DAYTON - Dayton had its moment in the sun on Saturday as it displayed the best it has to offer including historic homes, flourishing businesses and plenty of local art for its event Dayton On Tour.

Visitors had a chance to pick up a guidebook and walk into historical homes in town that had recently been renovated. Jennie Dickinson, a volunteer for the Dayton Historic Depot, said the home tours are her favorite part of Dayton on Tour, especially the Broughton Mansion this year.

"It's like a museum," Dickinson said.

The home tours are the original reason for the fall festival in Dayton that has been expanded on over three decades.

The most recent addition to the tour is a tour of Touchet Valley businesses. This year, two busloads full of people stopped by Monteillet Fromagerie and Dumas Station Winery in Dayton and Amo Art and the jimgermanbar in Waitsburg.

The event culminated at about 4:30 p.m. in the courtyard of the depot for the artist's reception. The downtown Task Force obtained a grant that allowed them to hire local mural artist Brian Graham to re-paint advertisements on the back of the Sterling Savings and St. Vincent De Paul buildings.

The unveiling of public art has become a large component in the festival.

Graham and his volunteers worked for two months on the advertisements that were unveiled on Saturday.

Hendrickson said the idea to restore the signs was dreamed up by local women three years ago. The Sherwood Trust offered a grant for the project and the building owners were convinced to fix the bricks in the building so the work could be done, she said.

Through the work of volunteers, the brick was repaired, cleaned and painted.

Hendrickson said Graham looked into the history of the sign and learned there are actually two on the building. The first sight is for a dry goods grocery store and was painted between 1900 and 1906.

A completely faded sign, or ghost sign, underneath is a sign advertising baking powder and was applied to the building in about 1896. Graham studied each sign and painted them by hand to make them brighter, but also to make them appear aged and historical.

While Graham was busy painting the signs, one woman stopped by to ask when he would start painting, Hendrickson said. She didn't think he had even started yet because the signs he painted actually looked old.

A special coating will be applied to the painting so it will last another 100 years, she said.

Graham said he finished up the painting right on time for Saturday's reveal and he still needs to put that preserving top coat on.

And after two months of solid work on the project, he's hoping to get another chance at a similar project.

"When I started I thought it was overwhelming," Graham said.

He said it was tough to do all of the repairs because he couldn't actually see the progress.

But, when he started applying the paint, it all changed.

"It was a lot more gratifying," he said. "And there are thousands of these signs out there."