22 • Footwear Insight ~ September/October 2022 footwearinsight.com
An Old School Success Story
Dayton's Dominant Family Shoe Retail Name for More Than a Century Carries On.
STORE PROFILE
RETAIL
By Bob McGee
O
r v i l l e a n d Wi l b u r
Wright, the aviation
pioneers, have long
been associated with
Dayton, OH, given the city on the
Miami River in Southwest Ohio is
their birthplace. But the flying Wright
brothers were not the only family
name to emerge in the Gem City at
the start of the 20th century. ree
years aer the Wrights successfully
conducted the first free, controlled
flight of a power-driven airplane in
Dec. 1903, George Roderer Sr., a
shoemaker, Prussian immigrant and
father of nine opened the first Roderer
family shoe store on the corner of
Xenia Avenue and Dover Street. He
had immigrated to Ohio in the 1880s
with three brothers, landing a job
at the 1884-founded National Cash
Register (NCR) company where he
would oen wear home a colleague's
shoes to repair them. e financial
success of that side hustle inspired
George to open his own shoe store
in 1906, aptly called Roderer Shoes.
Fieen years later in 1921, George's
brother John, also a father of nine,
opened a competing shoe shop a
block away with the same Roderer
Shoes nameplate. e dueling siblings,
which were affectionately known as
'Big Roderer' and 'Little Roderer' by
locales, also faced competition from
an unspecified relative, Anthony
Roderer, who also operated a Dayton
Comfort
shoe offerings
all around at
Roderer
Shoes, Inc.
