Dayton is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the
sixth most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the time of 2020 United States census. The Dayton metropolitan area has an estimated 822,000 residents and is the state’s fourth largest metropolitan area. Dayton is located within Ohio’s Miami Valley region, 40 miles (64 km) north of Cincinnati and 55 miles (89 km) southwest of Columbus, Ohio.
At a Glance
- Counties: Montgomery County and Greene County
- County seat of Montgomery County
- State: Ohio
History of Dayton
Dayton was founded on April 1, 1796, by 12 settlers known as the Thompson Party. They traveled in March from Cincinnati up the Great Miami River by pirogue and landed at what is now St. Clair Street, where they found two small camps of Native Americans. Among the Thompson Party was Benjamin Van Cleve, whose memoirs provide insights into the Ohio Valley’s history. Two other groups traveling overland arrived several days later. The oldest surviving building is Newcom Tavern, which was used for various purposes, including housing Dayton’s first church, which is still in existence.
In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out Mad River Road, the first overland connection between Cincinnati and Dayton, opening the "Mad River Country" to settlement. Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803, and the village of Dayton was incorporated in 1805 and chartered as a city in 1841. The city was named after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War who signed the U.S. Constitution and owned a significant amount of land in the area. In 1827, construction on the Dayton, Cincinnati canal began, which provided a better way to transport goods from Dayton to Cincinnati and contributed significantly to Dayton’s economic growth during the 1800s.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Dayton, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.