Deeds Carillon Concert, NCR Christmas Tree brought much joy through the years
Two Dayton traditions provided residents with a little relief from some of the 20th century’s worst years. Here are their origins:
The First Deeds Carillon Concert
On Christmas Eve 1941, Daytonians huddled around Deeds Carillon, reeling from the recent dreadful news. Just 17 days before, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the Pearl Harbor naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii, killing more than 2,400 Americans and injuring almost 1,200 more. President Franklin D. Roosevelt—who, only two decades before, had walked the Gem City’s streets as James M. Cox’s vice-presidential running mate during the Dayton Daily News magnate’s failed 1920 presidential bid—had just declared war on Japan. Dayton’s sons were headed for the trenches, and some would never return home.
So, while the first carillon concert was originally slated for Easter Sunday 1942, Dayton’s newest landmark made a much-needed early debut on Christmas Eve 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Deeds Carillon premiered peeling Christmas music.
“‘Peace on earth, good will to men’ were a reality in Dayton on Christmas eve and Christmas Day as varied groups joined in the Yuletide rejoicing,” the Dayton Daily News wrote in its Dec. 25, 1941, edition under the headline “Dayton Hears Carillon In First Program.” “Highlights of the Christmas eve celebration was the ringing for the first time of the Deeds carillon in Carillon park, at 8 p.m., with Robert E. Kline presenting a program of Christmas carols and Yuletide songs.”
Designed by Reinhard & Hofmeister, the same architectural firm responsible for Rockefeller Center, Deeds Carillon was immediately tied to Christmas. And like New York’s iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, which debuted in 1931 during the depths of the Great Depression, the carillon was also a hallmark of hope during troubled times.
It has been 80 years since that debut 1941 Deeds Carillon Christmas concert, and in recent years, the bell tower has been transformed from a figurative beacon of light into an actual beacon of light. As the centerpiece of A Carillon Christmas, Deeds Carillon has now been recast as the Carillon Tree of Light, towering upward of 200 feet and featuring more than 20,000 lights.
The NCR Christmas Tree
For much of the 20th century, the NCR Christmas Tree was a symbol of Gem City holiday cheer. Situated at NCR World Headquarters (Building 10 on South Main Street), the tree’s thousands of lights shimmered every December.
In 1947, NCR estimated the company’s window display department spent “214 man-hours” decorating the tree, its electrical department spent “136 man-hours” stringing 2,039 bulbs and getting electrical connections laid, and five men from the carpentry and paint department worked a half-day erecting the 25-foot-tall tree. With that amount of work, it must have been particularly discouraging when, two years later, on Dec. 22, 1949, the wind lopped 18 feet off the top of the tree. “NCR’S Christmas Tree Blows Its Top,” the Dayton Daily News headline read that evening.
But the toppled tree didn’t stop NCR. Each Christmas, the company outdid itself, trekking across Ohio in search of a bigger candidate. In 1956, NCR covered more than 150 miles of wilderness searching for a tree. Finally, the company found a 45-foot-tall tree in south-central Ohio that had been growing for more than 40 years. After it was adorned with 3,000-plus lights, and topped with a giant star, it stood 50 feet tall.
Each decade, the NCR Tree got bigger.
“Our 1961 NCR Christmas tree … after serving as a show tree, a place where children loved to romp and play, a tree where cardinals, bluebirds and others came to twitter and chatter in the morning sun, it is called to serve another purpose,” The Journal Herald wrote Dec. 13, 1961. “Forty-two rings circled the bottom of the cut-off tree upon which a workman had written ‘Merry Christmas.’ Forty-two years is young for the giant that measured nearly 60 feet in height and at least 30 to 40 feet in diameter.”
But 1970 would be the last year for the NCR Christmas Tree. After a quarter-century, the tradition stopped when workers went on strike the following year. Then, in 1972, NCR donated a tree to be displayed downtown as part of the city’s One World of Dayton celebration.
NCR, of course, left the Gem City in 2009. But each year, another giant Christmas tree still rises in downtown Dayton, a constant symbol of joy and hope and renewal in an ever-changing city.
