History of Dayton, Ohio

You may know who delivers the best garage door repair in Dayton, Ohio but how well do you know the History of United States? And yes, how well do you know the history of Dayton? Dubbed “Home of Aviation”, Dayton is a city in Ohio on the great River of Miami. With the first settlers believed to have stepped foot on this land in the year 1796 on their way to the Great Ohio Valley from Cincinnati, the first owners of the area were the Miami people. After being pushed and pressured to move by the Iroquois, the Miami people had no option but to relocate. It was during this relocation that they discovered Dayton.

In 1830, after the passing of Indian Removal Act, these natives were left with no option but to leave their homes and move to Kansas before moving to Oklahoma later on. The village, Dayton, was incorporated in the year 1805 and was named after the famous Jonathan Dayton. Who was Jonathan Dayton? For those of us who aren’t conversant with history, Jonathan Dayton was a land owner in the recent day Dayton village. He happened to have been the youngest man to sign the U.S constitution which he did at a tender age of 26 years.

Some of the most remarkable people ever born on Dayton’s soil are the Wright brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar. After attending school, the Wright brothers formed the Wright Bicycle Company in the year 1896 which proved to be quite a success. They managed to produce their own line of awesome bicycles. However, it did not take long before they became interested in flight. It is their love for the flight that gave Dayton the name “Home of Aviation”.

To commemorate and celebrate their invaluable contributions to the evolution of modern flight, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park was established. At the same time, Paul Laurence Dunbar State Memorial was also established to recognize his contribution to the literary world where he did an amazing job. This African-American writer went down history thanks to his amazing and excellent writing skills which won him numerous awards.

Thanks to its proximity to coal and natural gas fields, Dayton became a manufacturing center. And yes, given the creative and innovative nature of its citizens, Dayton managed to be the source of numerous innovations such as the first cash register, computing scale as well as the first ethyl gasoline. Today, most of these innovations have been modified and are still in use in most sectors of our current society.

Dayton has also had some disastrous times given its low-lying location close to Miami Valley. For instance, the floods witnessed in the year 1913 which claimed over 100 people and resulted in huge losses have gone down history as the worst floods in Dayton. However, repeated episodes of flooding have been witnessed in this region due to its location. Measures have, however, been put in place to curb the situation.

As a result of these floods, major political reforms were conducted by Dayton’s citizens who felt like their leaders had done little to combat the situation. They replaced the city’s government with five elected members. This action paved way for other cities and towns to emulate the same idea.