A Brief History of Dayton, Ohio

Seven years before the admission of Ohio to the Union in 1803, a small group of US settlers founded Dayton, Ohio (April 1, 1796). In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out the Mad River Road, the first overland connection between Cincinnati, Ohio and Dayton. This opened up the "Mad River Country" at Dayton and the upper Miami Valley to settlement. In 1805, the town was incorporated, and given its name after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War and signer of the U.S. Constitution.

The Miami and Erie Canal (built in the 1830s), connected the Dayton commerce from Lake Erie via the Great Miami River. This served as the principal route of transportation for western Ohio until the 1850s.