Where the Cheez-It Was Invented: A Forgotten Dayton Factory’s Legacy
Cheez-Its are a popular snack, but most people eating them have no idea where they came from.
The answer is a factory at the corner of Cincinnati and Concord Streets in southwest Dayton, Ohio, a site that was once surrounded by a dense working-class neighborhood.
The company is long gone today, along with most of the world that surrounded it, but a new effort has recently brought some recognition to this history that had largely been forgotten.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/dayton-daily-news/205203068/
Article from Apr 8, 1923 Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio)
A view of the Green and Green factory in Dayton’s Edgemont neighborhood in the 1920s, around the time it debuted the Cheez-It
Who Invented Cheez-Its?
Cheez-Its were invented by Green & Green, a company founded in 1897 by the Green family in Dayton, Ohio.
At the time of its founding Dayton was accelerating its growth as an industrial power. And like many other local firms it would grow significantly in its first couple of decades.
In 1907, the company moved to the Edgemont neighborhood on Dayton’s southwest side.
It experimented with a few different types of cracker before stumbling onto the one that is still a household name today.
When Were Cheez-Its Invented in Dayton?
Cheez-Its were introduced on March 31, 1921, marketed by Green & Green as a “baked rarebit,” a reference to a dish of melted cheese over toast.
The company expanded significantly by 1926, under the leadership of president Joseph W. Green, becoming the largest biscuit bakery in the state of Ohio.
In this early advertisement you can see the Green and Green’s Edgemont Cheez-It name, and a tagline of “Cheese wafers, a perfect baked rarebit.” It also encourages home cooks to experiment with making an omelette with crushed cheez-its inside, served with jelly!
Factory Expansion and the Sunshine Biscuit Company’s Ownership
https://www.newspapers.com/article/dayton-daily-news/205202964/
Article from Aug 31, 1929 Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio)
Green and Green merged with the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company in 1928, adding its line of “Sunshine Biscuits” and taking advantage of that company’s “nationwide organization.”
The following year, 1929, the company moved forward with a major expansion of its factory, adding a 7-story addition built of reinforced concrete and steel, and topped by a “large clock tower which will overlook the Edgemont section in which the baking company’s plant is located.”
The company would take on the name of the Sunshine Biscuit Company, and further expand the plant in the ensuing years.
Edgemont itself had developed in the latter half of the 19th century as what residents called an “industrial suburb,” a dense neighborhood of workers and their families who had come to find employment in its factories.
German and Italian immigrants settled here, with St. Elizabeth Hospital serving as one of the neighborhood’s civic anchors. After World War II the neighborhood became predominantly African-American.
In a 1957 photograph, the Sunshine Grill cafeteria is visible at 701 Cincinnati Street, with the massive Sunshine Biscuit Company looming directly behind it.
The Sunshine Grill, a Lost Corner Restaurant in the Factory’s Shadow
This was a typical modest commercial building one can find in countless industrial neighborhoods across the country: entirely dependent on the factory workers and the residents who lived nearby in the closely-knit neighborhood.
But by the later decades of the 20th century, Edgemont’s industry had largely departed. The Sunshine Biscuit Company operated on the site until the 1970s.
Freeways bisected the neighborhood, and the dense residential and commercial fabric that once surrounded that corner has been reduced to scattered remnants.
The restaurant is long gone today and entire blocks have turned into empty lots.
As for the Cheez-It brand, it passed through Keebler to Kellogg’s and eventually to Kellanova, now owned by Mars, selling billions of crackers a year.
The Sunshine Biscuit Company factory still stands, having later been converted to a storage warehouse, but still continued to deteriorate and was named as one of Dayton’s worst eyesores in 2020. (And it’s worth noting that most of what dated to the Green and Green days were demolished later.)
A recent effort to add an official Ohio Historical Marker to the factory site, however, has helped to commemorate this history that had largely been forgotten.
The campaign was started by Todd Hollst of WHIO Radio who did extensive research on Green and Green and the Cheez-It legacy, and the marker was just unveiled on September 1, 2026 at an event at Carillon Historical Park.
It will be placed on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard close to the factory location.
Source:
- Dayton Daily News, “Were Cheez-Its really invented in Dayton?” https://www.daytondailynews.com/what-to-love/were-cheez-its-really-invented-in-dayton-yes-and-heres-the-story/EGFTZDIVG7VN42KUV5DBBF5WVE/
- https://www.whio.com/news/local/new-historical-marker-honors-dayton-birthplace-cheez-it/SETAN35USFF5RK73XCWLZOSQEI/
- Edgemont history, Dayton Vistas
- Images: Dayton History Books Online / Dayton Metro Library
