The Dayton Marcos history predates the formal organized leagues of Negro league baseball. As an independent team, and also as the only black team in the Ohio-Indiana League [1] they played black and white teams all over the country throughout the 1910s.
Old newspaper accounts and fading memories are some of the only sources of information on the Marcos.[2] The team was started by Daytonian Moses Moore, a real estate agent. Moore owned the New Marco Hotel and apparently named his team after that enterprise.[3] The team was to be entertainment for Dahomey Park, the first black-owned and operated amusement park in the United States.[4] Local newspapers sometimes referred to the team as "Moses Moore's Marcos."
