Null Marcus Hodapp (1894-1945)

From the Dayton Daily News, November 6, 1927.

  Shortly before Judge Urbanus S. Saunders was elected to the bench in Wayne County, Ohio, another curiously named judge was beginning his career in Dayton. That man was Null Marcus Hodapp, a World War I veteran and attorney based in that city. In addition to serving as judge of the municipal court of Dayton and as a Montgomery County common pleas court judge, Hodapp gained further distinction as the primary figure behind the construction of Argonne Forest Park, remnants of which still exist today. Born on July 4, 1894, in Ohio, Null Marcus Hodapp was the son of Frank and Delsie Hodapp.

  Hodapp's formative years were spent in East Dayton, and his early education was obtained in the Ruskin and McKinley schools. He was a graduate of the Stivers High School, and during his youth partnered with his brother Ruey to form a newspaper route. The brothers accumulated enough income from their venture to finance their first year of college, with both deciding upon careers in law. Null Hodapp graduated with his law degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1917, and for a time was affiliated with the law firm of Burkhart, Heald, and Pickrel. At the dawn of American involvement in WWI in 1917, Hodapp became one of sixty-six Dayton men to enlist for service. 

 After undergoing training at Camp Chillicothe and Camp Mills in Long Island, Hodapp and his fellow servicemen embarked for Europe in 1918. He and longtime friend Ralph Clemens would take rank amongst the 322nd Field Artillery and with this unit:

"Spent one year on French and German soil participating in the Mause-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of Verdun where the battery played an important part in a successful battle." 

 On November 11, 1918, just hours before the signing of the Armistice, Null Hodapp suffered the death of his friend Ralph Clemens, who was killed by a shell fragment. The next month Hodapp and the rest of 322nd were dispatched to Germany, where "he served on German soil near Coblentz" until May 1919. Following an honorable discharge, Hodapp returned to Dayton and participated in the publishing of the history of his unit, entitled the History of the 322nd Field Artillery. Hodapp was later named president of the 322nd Field Artillery Association, which was "regarded as a model ex-service organization by army officials." 

  After his return to Dayton, Null Hodapp partnered with his brother Ruey in the firm of Hodapp & Hodapp, which continued until the former's election as a municipal judge. On June 15, 1921, Hodapp married in Dayton to LoRean Hulda Dannersbach (1901-1996). The couple separated in the mid-1930s and would have two children, Eleanor May (born ca. 1923) and Null Marcus Jr. (1925-2004). Distinguished in the city musical establishment, LoRean Hodapp was a soprano soloist with the Westminster Presbyterian choir and had earlier toured the midwest with the Redpath Lyceum circuit.

  While still engaged with his law practice in the mid-1920s, Null Hodapp focused his efforts on the purchase of farmland near Dayton's Germantown Pike, with his end goal being the creation of a park for World War veterans and their families. By 1925 he had accrued over 400 acres of land, and with the help of a number of fellow veterans and contractors set out to make his vision a reality. Opened in July 1927, the park was named the Argonne Forest Park, and under Hodapp's direction, the dedication was complete with a fireworks display and a mock-battle. A second mock battle at the park was held three months later on October 15, complete with trenches, dugouts, forts, "and several rows of field artillery." Following its dedication, the Argonne Forest Park would be home to a clubhouse, swimming pool, picnic areas, a dance floor, a baseball diamond, concession stands, pony rides, a shooting range, "and a figure-eight auto race track." At the annual July 4th extravaganza during the 1930s, the park also staged a mock reenactment of the Battle of Argonne Forest, which featured a number of the battle's local veterans, complete with old uniforms and rifles firing blanks.

From the Dayton Daily News, June 5, 1927.

  One month prior to the dedication of Argonne Forest Park Hodapp made his first foray into Dayton politics, announcing his candidacy for judge of the municipal court. Hodapp won the August 1927 primary and through the remainder of that year had his candidacy boomed in Dayton newspapers. One day prior to his election Hodapp was profiled in the Dayton News, which detailed:

"If elected, as judge of the municipal court, on November 8, Mr. Hodapp promises his very best to the citizens of Dayton in the way of a judge. He has gone even further than that and has promised before taking the bench he will make a trip to Cleveland, Colombus and Cincinnati and get from their courts the requisites that go to make up a clean-cut, wide awake, and efficient office and personnel."

  In November 1927 Null Hodapp won out at the polls, defeating incumbent Judge William G. Powell by a vote of 15,747 to 13,854. Just days following his win, Hodapp fulfilled his earlier promise to visit other municipal courts in several major Ohio cities and took his seat on the bench on January 2, 1928. His service extended until 1936, with his tenure highlighted in his 1945 Dayton Daily News obituary, which related:

"His unconventional methods of conducting police court and the fact that he handled much of the building and loan litigation during his tenure in common pleas court made Judge Hodapp a widely known and highly controversial figure."

  Among the methods Hodapp utilized during his time on the municipal bench was the permission of radio broadcasts of sessions of the police court, and early in his tenure noted that he'd be reducing the bail for "pink ticket offenses" (such as parking infractions) to one dollar. Announcing that he "sought to dispense justice rather than enrich the city treasury", Hodapp's reduction of the traffic bail early in his service drew the ire of other city officials, who noted that "approximately thirty thousand dollars would be lost" in city revenue.

From the Dayton Herald News, January 6, 1928.

  By 1935 Judge Hodapp was at the end of his second term as judge and was unopposed going into the August 1935 Democratic primary. That November he defeated Republican candidate Clarence J. Stewart, 28,866 votes to 14,887 and was mentioned by the Dayton Daily Herald as having been "accorded the highest vote of any of the candidates for office whose names appeared on the ballot." 

  Null Hodapp's third term as municipal judge proved to be short, and in the spring of 1936 announced his candidacy for the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. He won the primary election that May and in November bested Republican nominee E.T. Snediker by a 24,000 vote margin. His term began in January 1937 and in November 1941 was elected to a second term. Hodapp's eight-year tenure on the court of common pleas saw him preside over several "sensational criminal cases", among which was the 1942 murder trial of the Richardson brothers, a gang of four who were convicted for the slaying of Everett Deweese, who had been killed by a shotgun blast following a robbery at an Alexanderville tavern. Hodapp also presided over the 1944 murder trial of 21-year-old Lillie Mae Hartley, who was later acquitted by a jury in the shooting death of Corp. Jack Nathanson, which had occurred at her apartment on December 29, 1943. 

  Through his judgeship, Hodapp remained connected to the operations of Argonne Forest Park, where he had a home, and for several years was an owner of the Southern Hills Sand, Gravel, and Excavating Company of Dayton. With the coming of World War II and gas rationing, attendance at the Argonne Forest Park ebbed considerably, and in the early 1940s had been unsuccessful in his bid to have the Montgomery County fairgrounds relocated to Argonne Forest. On January 2, 1945, Hodapp was discovered unconscious on the kitchen floor of his home by a fellow gravel company employee. Early newspaper reports noted that he had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage several hours before, and following his discovery, was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton. Hodapp died in hospital on January 5, 1945, aged 50, never having regained consciousness. Following his death, newspaper reports noted his death as the result of a paralytic stroke.

From the Dayton Journal Herald, January 6, 1945.

   Judge Hodapp's unexpected death was front-page news in Dayton papers, and in the days following his passing received an extensive mention, with one Daytonian, C.K. Moore, writing:

"The late Hon. Judge Null M. Hodapp of the court of common pleas was very well liked by many citizens in this community, as was proved many times at the polls in recent years. He was fair and square in his decisions and many respect his memory."

  Further character assessments of Hodapp were published in the Dayton Journal Herald on January 9, 1945, dating back to his time as municipal judge. He was remarked as having held over cases so that he could personally visit "the home to verify statements of the accused", adopted equitable treatment of workingmen and African-Americans, and on "innumerable" occasions "patched up differences between careless auto drivers and the owners of other cars or property they damaged."

  Null M. Hodapp was survived by his two children and was succeeded on the common pleas bench by Judge Clarence J. Stewart. Following funeral arrangements, he was interred at the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in Dayton. Sadly, Hodapp's brainchild, the Argonne Forest Park, did not long survive him. In the years following his death, parcels of the parkland were sold off, and in 1966 it was purchased by the Dayton-Montgomery Park district. Over the succeeding decades, the park's remains were gradually absorbed by the surrounding forest, but remnants of the park, including the dancefloor and swimming pool wall, still can be seen today. The memory of Null Hodapp and Argonne Forest Park still remains strong in Dayton today, with his life and park history being profiled in Dayton newspapers in 1984, 1998, and most recently in May of this year.

From the Dayton Daily News, January 6, 1945