Who was The Barn Gang?

Very simply, they were a group of some of Dayton’s finest minds, mostly National Cash Register (NCR) talents, who met in the two-story carriage house at 319 Central Avenue owned by Col. Edward Deeds, a superintendent of NCR. In this barn, now safely stationed within the Heritage Center at Carillon Historical Park, was invented the automobile’s electric starter and was the origins of Dayton Electronics Company, DELCO. Most of their work in the carriage house was after leaving NCR, having dinner at home, and meeting up by 7:00 PM, often working well into the early morning before heading home for a bit of sleep and a return to NCR, shortly thereafter.

In short, it was the ultimate man cave!

This morning, I visited the gravesites of several of my favorite Barn Gang members, Charles F. Kettering, William Chryst, Edward Deeds, and a pseudo-member, NCR founder, John Patterson who seems to have loaned his most brilliant engineers, mechanics, and draftsmen, as well as the equipment and tools used by The Barn Gang.

Although I am so unfamiliar with their world of engineering, I would love to go back in time to spend one evening with The Barn Gang.