Tis the season to Shop Local!

Ever heard of Elf on a Shelf? This season there is a special downtown business Elf that has journeyed to various businesses causing mischief.  This Elf wants all to know how great local, independently owned businesses are–and he’s offering an incentive to come downtown!

Beginning Tuesday, December 10th through Thursday morning, December 19th, you will have a chance to win at least 2 $20 gift cards to restaurant and retail establishments.

Watch FACEBOOK for the latest places Elf heads to.  Go to a participating business, mention the Facebook post, enter your name into a bucket, and you will be entered to win gift cards.  There will be 5 winners of at least 2 gift cards each.

Names will be drawn on December 19th to give you those last 5 days to shop before Christmas!

Hint: (here’s a list of participating businesses–Elf will let you enter your name at any IF you’ve been being good and viewing the Facebook pictures…)
Extra Hint: You can enter your name twice if you go to the business the same day the business is on Facebook.

A Taste of Wine
Animal Medical Center
Bullwinkle’s
Classic Stitch
Dour Printing & Office Supplies
Edward Jones Investments
Fox Motors
Great Miami Outfitters
Hamburger Wagon
Little Shop of Stitches
Red Bricks Photography
Ron’s Pizza
TJ Chumps
Urban Loft Boutique

The excitement of the Tour de France returns to historic downtown Miamisburg. The 2011 Tour d’ Burg, will feature top criterium riders competing in USA Cycling sanctioned races on a one-mile circuit featuring long straights for speed and drafting, and six turns for skill. Additional races throughout the day will accommodate local racers of all ages.

Tour d’ Burg registration will open soon.

River towns of the Miami Valley were decimated by the infamous Great Flood of 1913. Miamisburg was no exception as floodwaters from the Great Miami River caused untold damage to this small community.

As Miamisburg was virtually under water, the Red Cross set up a tent city for the refugees at the top of Mound Hill. Sherman “Cocky” Porter, a Miamisburg resident, volunteered to help provide food for the flood victims and relief workers. As the cold March winds blew through the camp, Porter knew that whatever food was to be provided needed to be warm, nutritious and readily available in large quantities. Porter had just the right answer. Utilizing a favorite family recipe, Porter began serving up hot, tasty hamburgers to everyone in the camp for many days. These sandwiches were a huge hit and were extremely popular throughout the community.

As time went by, the floodwaters receded, the tent city closed and life in Miamisburg returned to normal. However, something was missing! Miamisburg residents loved the little “Porter Burgers” so much that nary a day went by without a request to Porter to cook up a few more of his burgers. With demand swelling, Sherman Porter finally agreed to start selling his secret recipe burgers on Saturdays. The burgers were so popular it soon became a full time endeavor and these tasty treats have been a Miamisburg institution ever since.

If this is your first time to Miamisburg, stop down to the “Wagon” and find out what all the fuss is about. Ranked one of the top 100 hamburgers in the United States by the recent book “Hamburger America”, we hope you’ll stop by and give this piece of Americana a try.

The Hamburger Wagon is open from 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM daily. This summer, while the weather is nice, don’t miss out on these delicious burgers!

Here are some facts about Miamisburg’s history that you may not know. Long before Bullwinkles and TJ Chumps, before bike trails and car cruise-ins, there existed another culture.

The Adena Indians, a Pre-Columbian Native American culture, existed from 1000 to 200 B.C. in a time known as the early Woodland Period. This culture consisted of a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system in locations mostly in the Central Ohio Valley.

Lasting traces of Adena culture are still seen in their substantial earthworks. Once Adena mounds numbered in the hundreds, but only a number of Adena earthen monuments still survive today. One such mound, known as the Miamisburg Mound, is the highest conical mound in Ohio and possibly the world. In addition, they built an enclosure of earthworks from 3 to 10 feet high by 50 feet wide at the base. The earthworks enclosed their village, the site of which now comprises the “downtown” area of Miamisburg. Huge trees grew on the walls and bricks made from its clay eventually went into houses and buildings of the town.

Historical records show that in the early 17th century the indigenous Algonquin peoples organized the tribes of the area into the Miami Confederation, which fought to protect the lands from the unfriendly Iroquois. The most powerful tribes in the confederation were the Miami (specifically the Wea and Piankashaw bands). The valley between the Great and the Little Miami Rivers was the hunting ground for the Miami tribe. At that time no settlements existed on the hunting grounds. The stamping grounds and villages were located on the west side of the Great Miami River. When the Greenville Treaty was signed in 1795, essentially ending the Indian resistance in the Northwest territory, settlers began arriving in the lush Miami Valley.

About 1797, Zachariah Hole came with his family from Virginia and fearing trouble with the local Indians, he built a stockade on the east bank of the Great Miami River opposite the mouth of Bear Creek. He found the Indians friendly. To the stockade came squatters, surveying parties, and settlers mostly from Pennsylvania who had taken out grants and lived there until their own cabins were completed; hence the small community came to be known as “Hole’s Station.”
 
On Feb. 20, 1818, four men from Pennsylvania – Emanuel Gebhart, Jacob Kercher, Dr. John Treon and Dr. Peter Treon – offered for sale at public auction 90 lots in a new town by the name of Miamisburg. Situated on the left bank of the Great Miami River, the plat was divided into square lots containing one-fifth of an acre.

The name Miamisburg was derived from the Miami Indian tribe that resided there, combining “Miamis” with “burg,” which denotes a borough or town. By 1818, the unincorporated community had become a village and achieved City status about 100 years later.

Excerpts from Wikipedia and the Miamisburg Historical Society.

All month long businesses in Miamisburg are participating in a fun event called the SCANVenger Hunt. For the entire month of August, you can visit businesses and get special offers, discounts, and learn interesting facts about the business! This is a great way for you to engage with us using your smart phone and a new technology called QR codes.

The way it works is simple:

1. Register for Montgomery County’s buy local program by visiting ThinkTwiceMC.com.

2. Visit your smart phone’s app store and search for a QR code reader. We recommend either NeoReader or i-nigma (they are both free and work on most phones).

3. Visit TJ Chumps during normal business hours to get your Interactive Tee! Look around downtown Miamisburg for the window clings that have the Think Twice and SCANVenger Hunt logos on them. Scan these QR codes with your smart phone for a chance to win prizes by performing fun tasks and answering trivia questions at the participating locations!

Make sure you visit one of the following businesses and scan their Think Twice QR code, you never know what you are going to find!

A Taste of Wine
Alcor Supply
American Health and Fitness
Baver & Bookwalter
Bullwinkle’s Top Hat Bistro
Buy It All
Chapman Financial
Church’s Flowers
City of Miamisburg Annex
Dairy Queen
English Manor Bed and Breakfast
Farmers & Merchants Bank
Farmers Market
Flooring N Beyond
Fox Motors
Gary Hartman Design
Giuliano, An Anticoli Tavern
Good Time Charlie’s
Great Miami Outfitters
Hamburger Wagon
Happy Days Cafe
Jatro Diesel
Koffee Kup
Masters Insurance
Miamisburg Barber
Miamisburg Library
Mound Golf Course
Nestor Insurance
Pappa’s Pizza Palace
Pipestone Golf Course
Ron’s Pizza
Second Street Cafe
Sycamore Trails Acquatic Center
TJ Chumps
Urban Loft
Van Lear Bridal & Formal Attire