RESEARCH
RESEARCH
Richard Kuertz, 75, said his still produces 160-proof alcohol which he pumps into his car and other motors.
“It just takes a little adjusting to the carburetor,” he said. The small structure, portable and relatively simple, was built of wood frames. Tilted at an angle towards the sun, the collector allows sunlight to enter through glass panels. The mash evaporates in the heat absorbed through the glass and retained by a black burlap backing. The alcohol condenses on the inside of the glass, trickles down a small trough and empties into a plastic bottle outside the still, simply labeled “alcohol.”
“Once you get it running, it doesn’t cost you anything for fuel,” said the basement inventor. “It’s all sun power.”
Kuertz has already adapted alternative and solar power to his house. He spent $450 building a solar water heater system for the house on his 10-acre lot. Kuertz added coils in the fireplace to help heat the water in the winter.
“Well, you know what the price of electricity is. It’s way too high,” he said. “I look at it this way. That $450 might have earned me six percent in the bank over a year. At home, it’s earning me seven dollars per month, or about $84 a year. I’m ahead,” he said.
URL: https://dks.library.kent.edu/cgi-bin/kentstate?a=d&d=dks19800926-01.2.51&txq=darrtown
COMMUNITY - PAGE 2
Community Militia Sports Hitching Post Post Office Return to Events page
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From the Daily Kent Stater
Volume LIV, Number 16
26 September 1980
Ohio inventor constructs solar-powered still
Darrtown, Ohio (AP) A Butler County man who considers himself inquisitive by nature and frugal by avocation has developed a solar-powered still which he built out of scraps for about $2.
DARRTOWN MAN INVENTS SOLAR-POWERED STILL
HORRIFIC HUNTING ACCIDENT NEAR DARRTOWN
Dog triggers gun blast that leads to amputation of dog owner's hand
From the Daily Ohio Statesman ~ March 11, 1868 - quoting the Hamilton Telegraph
BELOW - This 1875 map of Milford Township shows two pieces of property northwest of Darrtown that bear the Keck name.
Research of Darrtown Family Tree at Ancestry.com confirms David Keck's connection to Darrtown:
1. David W. Keck was born in 1846 - which means that he was 22 years old at the time of this 1868 shotgun accident.
2. David Keck's father was named Samuel Keck, which coincides with the "S. Keck" listed on the 1875 map below.
3. Family event records (see list immediately below) place the Keck family at Darrtown.
4. David Keck married Mary A. Morton (1851-1925)
5. The 1860 census reports David and his family living at Darrtown (see blue box below).
5. David Keck died at age 73, in 1919.
1860 US Federal Census
DAVID KECK LIFE EVENTS (from Ancestry.com)
DARRTOWN AREA MOTEL CLOSED FOR ONE YEAR
Denny's Tavern at Four Mile Creek never re-opened.
DARRTOWN NATIVE ELECTED MAYOR OF HAMILTON
FRED A. HINKEL was part of the Socialist Party take-over of the city's government on January 1, 1914
Socialist Party candidates assumed leadership of Hamilton government in 1914 as citizens struggled to recover from March 1913 flood
Local election seven months and 10 days after deadly rampage of the Great Miami River.
Compiled by Jim Blount
The March 1913 flood was more than a tragic weather event in Hamilton. It unleashed political forces in the city of more than 35,000 people, most still struggling to recover from Ohio’s worst natural disaster. Cleanup and rebuilding was continuing when residents voted in November 1913, an election that swept new municipal leadership into office.
Effective Jan. 1, 1914, the Socialist Party took control of Hamilton government. That day, Socialists took oaths of office for 10 of 16 city elective positions -- mayor, five members of city council, treasurer, solicitor, municipal judge and clerk of municipal court in a three-party contest. The Democrats -- usually dominant in city voting -- captured only one position. Five posts went to the Citizens Ticket.
Leading the Socialist surge was 27-year-old Fred A. Hinkel. The new mayor was a Darrtown native and Miami University graduate. He was Hamilton's first and only Socialist mayor. According the 1913 city directory, he was a former teacher residing on Maple Avenue.
Fred A. Hinkel was a member of the 1901 Darrtown High School senior class.
LEFT:This news article was found among the myriad columns written by Jim Blount and published in the Hamilton (Ohio) Journal News
Click to see the original article
Click to see more about the 1913 Flood.
Click to access the Jim Bount articles archived at the Lane Public Library.
“As 1929 ended, Oxford prepared to open and dedicate a new $125,000 school, William Stewart High School. The first major event there was the Jan. 3 basketball game between Stewart and Darrtown high schools, said to be special because it "is the first time in history that Oxford's public school students have ever had a gymnasium."
DARRTOWN VS. STEWART GAME IS FIRST IN OXFORD'S NEW GYM
Below is another Jim Blount story, archived at the Lane Public Library, that relates to Darrtown.
This is an imagined image
of the game ticket.
DARRTOWN-AREA HORSES DIE FROM MYSTERIOUS CAUSE
Learn more about H.D. Kyger and his horse-racing accomplishments at H.D. Kyger reported dead.
Learn more about H.D. Kyger's most famous trotters, including Kit Curry, at information about H.D. Kyger's horses.
The news item that appears at the left was published by the Democratic Northwest newspaper in Napoleon, Ohio, on January 22, 1891.
See info about Denny's Place IN HAMILTON.
Imagine the challenge of raising a litter of pigs to a total weight of one ton (2,000 pounds) in 180 days.
According to the following 1925 news item, two Milford Township farmers (William Taylor and Bernard Welsh, both of the Collinsville area) exceeded the goal of 2,000 pounds and H. L. Kramer of the Darrtown area missed the goal by a mere ten pounds.
Third entry falls only ten pounds short of 2000 pound goal
William Taylor's litter of 12 weighed in at 2,836 pounds! An average of 236.3 pounds each!!
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A new structure has appeared on the Darrtown landscape!
See more info about Ogle's Outhouse
Constructed on the Harry Ogle property, in early 2021, this new structure serves as a tribute to similar out-buildings that once stood on every residential property in Darrtown.
The environmentally friendly facility was designed and built by members of the Menke family. Family spokesperson, Steve Menke, said only reclaimed wood and donated items were used.
Played January 3, 1929
Click the following link to see the info we have about this incident. Visit Buckler fire.
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