Dayton Police History Foundation (DPHF) is a committee-advised fund component of The Dayton Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization. Dayton Police History Foundation was formed with a mission to preserve and recount Dayton, Ohio’s local law enforcement past. It is a unique story, repeatedly earning national distinction as its 230-year community-service history reveals.
DPHF preserves its eventful past by safeguarding police artifacts and developing projects/programs designed to educate the public, to include publishing historical accounts; giving community presentations; creating law enforcement history exhibits; et al.
DPHF’s principal goal is to establish a Dayton Metropolitan Police Museum at Carillon Historical Park where police artifacts, vintage images, and the stories they hold may someday be placed on permanent and rotating display for the appreciation of the general public.
About This Cause: Dayton Police History Foundation, Inc. (DPHF) was first chartered by the State of Ohio on January 1, 2010, and effective 2026, affiliated with The Dayton Foundation as a nonprofit fund component.
DPHF came into existence as an outgrowth of a temporary six-month “Patrolling the Streets of Dayton” police exhibit presented in 2008 at Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, this was the largest temporary exhibit held at the park’s newest facility, the Dicke Family Transportation Center. The attendance alone by over 20,000 children made it a success.
DPHF had the good fortune of creating this exhibit in partnership with the experienced staff of Dayton History, the official nonprofit historical organization of Montgomery County, Ohio. Dayton History operates the 65-acre campus of Dayton’s acclaimed Carillon Historical Park (established in 1950).
The “Patrolling the Streets” exhibit inspired a vision of a $1.5–$2M law enforcement museum facility at Carillon Park. Years in preparation, the start is at hand. In cooperation with Dayton History’s professional conservators, design renderings of some of the museum exhibits within the proposed law enforcement facility were created by Exhibit Concepts, Inc., an award-winning company that produces branded environments.
Why this grander permanent project?: The Dayton Police Department has been at the cutting edge of the law enforcement profession in the Midwest and nationwide throughout history, most notably in transportation and communications technology. It was the nation’s first municipal police department to install two-way radio transmitters in a police fleet (at President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1940 visit) and the nation’s first to install high-capacity cruiser keyboard data terminals in 1986 (and experimentally at President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 visit). Dayton developed the world’s most advanced police computer-aided dispatch system, recognized for its many technological firsts. And, on the transportation front, Dayton police wrote the world’s first speeding ticket in 1904. In 1911, Dayton established its motorcycle patrol, arguably the nation’s first, and in 1991 it became the international leader in police bicycle training and patrol, now a standard method of operation worldwide. The foundation of the International Police Mountain Bike Association is in Dayton, Ohio.
Undertaking a step-by-step approach to greater exposure: In 2013, DPHF contributed a law enforcement display in the Carillon Park’s new 1913 Great Dayton Flood exhibit facility and also opened an exhibit at the Schuster Performing Arts Center in tribute to Dayton Police Mounted Patrol. The latter was in conjunction with the Victoria Theatre Association production of the WWI-era performance of “War Horse.” In 2017, DPHF created a temporary police exhibit at the Centerville Art Gallery as a tribute to the Dayton Police Department’s 150th Anniversary. These and many other smaller community exhibits set the stage for its most ambitious project to date.
In early 2019, the first temporary exhibit element of an envisioned 10-component facility opened. It was assembled in the main building at Carillon Park. The $60,000 exhibit featured numerous artifacts from an incredible time in U.S. history ... a 20-year period of Prohibition and the Great Depression. This was a significant law enforcement era in combatting bootlegging and bank hold-ups. Titled “Bootleggers, Bandits, and Badges: From Dry Times to Hard Times in Dayton, Ohio,” the exhibit gallery featured historical treasures related to three key figures in U.S. criminal justice history: Chief Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Wurstner, John Dillinger, and George ‘Bugs’ Moran.
Dayton is uniquely positioned to tell their stories: Chief Rudy Wurstner had a legendary career beginning in 1902. Appointed to lead the police force in 1925, he was the Nation’s “Dean of Police Chiefs” beginning 1935 for the next 14 years and was recognized as such by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI in 1949. Officers under his command arrested the notorious gangster John Dillinger in 1933. A decade later, their investigation of a local hold-up brought the end to the crime career of infamous mobster ‘Bugs’ Moran, who was Al Capone’s rival and intended target of the 1929 “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
This era also produced some of the most compelling accounts of heroism by Dayton African-American patrolmen, including Sgt. Lucius Rice (shot in 1926 and again in 1939), and decorated WWI combat veteran, Ptl. William ‘Tom’ Wilson (shot in 1928). Both lawmen were fatally wounded in the line of duty while protecting the citizens of their community. The names of both men are engraved on the marble wall of the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington D.C.
The presentation of this incredible episode in Dayton and national law enforcement history was on display for 50 months and drew a captivated audience. Although it closed on December 31, 2023, it is a gateway to presenting the much wider story of statewide, national and worldwide accomplishments on either side of this period.
“Bootleggers, Bandits, and Badges” was the centerpiece launch of a tangible police exhibit as part of the larger goal of a $1.5–$2M building and the fuller 230-year account of Greater Dayton expressed through many law enforcement experiences that began in 1797. The evolution of law enforcement, as it adapted to the changing nature of the country, was the central narrative of this exhibit, but social and cultural accounts are presented throughout the journey. While this exhibit was a story about Greater Dayton’s presence on local, statewide, and national stages, it also captured the tale of our nation’s decade-by-decade development from the 1860s to 1950. Policing is an often unnoticed component of society’s growth... but it was not with this exhibit.
The popularity of the temporary “Bootleggers, Bandits, and Bandits” exhibit was such that many of its features – two custom display cases holding a 1921 Colt Thompson submachine gun, and Chief Wurstner’s 1920 Colt revolver in contrast with Dillinger’s 1933 Colt .38 Super auto pistol – are returning in Carillon Historical Park’s new permanent $3M exhibit facility in the center of the park campus – highlighting national criminal justice history in part – which is expected to open by 2027.
A Larger Vision and Fuller Story to be Told!: While Dayton law enforcement began with the appointment of its first constable in 1797, the Dayton Police Department itself formed in 1867. Challenging the young police force in 1874, the consequential path of the Women’s Temperance Crusade traveled through Dayton, Ohio, the first major U.S. city targeted by its dry campaign and first step to Prohibition. American soldiers traveled the same path, urgently deployed in 1913 to assist frontline Dayton patrolmen during one of the United States’ worst natural disasters of the 20th century, and again as the fierce strife of labor and civil rights movements drew national attention – and Army National Guardsmen – to Dayton in 1948 and 1966.
The entire community and visitors to the Greater Dayton area will be served by the achievement of the larger DPHF goal of a permanent law enforcement museum, especially the thousands of children that annually tour Carillon Historical Park during school field trips and with their families. Policing stirs the imaginations of our kids! Police officers have a special bond with youngsters and for decades have thrilled our kids with acts of heroism and entertained them with the Cop’rz band, McGruff the Crime Fighting Dog, and mounted patrol horses. They encourage our kids participating in Scouting programs, AAA traffic safety patrol, and P.A.L.–the Police Athletic League. They profoundly influence our children’s lives by focused exposure to D.A.R.E. – Drug Abuse Resistance Education – Child I.D., School Safety and other police initiatives.
During a 16-year span, fundraising has been pursued in many ways – such holding benefits, conducting outreach, and having pledge campaigns – to support the police museum initiative and other related project. Three books have been published by DPHF with all net proceeds going to DPH Foundation. The history of local law enforcement has been recounted in PowerPoint presentations given over 85 times throughout the Greater Dayton community and beyond. In truth, far greater financial support is needed through major philanthropic sponsorship by corporations and individual benefactors willing to adopt this project – a lasting Dayton Metropolitan Police Museum at Carillon Historical Park.
More than the Artifacts and Exhibits: The men and women who serve the public through law enforcement protect the community, support those in need, and place their lives in harm’s way if necessary for the welfare of others. To tell their story not only honors those policemen that have come before us, but also those men and women who have worn the uniform since 1974 through to today. The efforts by DPH Foundation is an opportunity to pay tribute to heroes past and present as well as offer a fabulous introduction to a national story in a Midwest setting that is often missed.
