Ten things worth knowing about Dayton

Every city has its trivia, but Dayton's tends to come with a story attached: a boat landing, a flood, a pretzel recipe, a fountain that fires water two hundred feet into the air. Here are ten things worth knowing, whether you are showing a visitor around or just settling an argument at the bar.

1. It is named for a signer of the Constitution

Dayton takes its name from Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, who signed the U.S. Constitution. He and a group of associates contracted for the land where the Mad River joins the Great Miami, and surveyors Israel Ludlow and Daniel Cooper laid out the town plat in 1795, before a single settler had arrived.

2. The first settlers came by boat on April 1, 1796

The boat landing at the head of what is now St. Clair Street on April 1 is the date Dayton counts from. A 1943 account by Charles F. Sullivan fills in the rest: three parties set out from Cincinnati on March 23, two overland and one by water, and the boat, with Benjamin Van Cleve aboard, got there first. The overland groups followed four days later, and by Sullivan's count only 36 people made the trip in all.

3. You can stand where the rivers meet

The confluence of the Great Miami and the Mad River is right downtown. The Five Rivers Fountain of Lights at RiverScape MetroPark straddles it, and in season its central geyser shoots about 200 feet high at the top of every hour. In winter the same park turns its pavilion into an ice rink, open from the Friday after Thanksgiving through late February.

4. A white Christmas is a coin flip you usually lose

Dayton has kept Christmas snow records since 1943, and in that time the city has woken up to at least an inch of snow on the ground only about 28 percent of the time. The record snow depth on Christmas Day is 16 inches, set in 2004, and the most recent white Christmas came in 2022.

5. The buses run on overhead wires

Dayton's electric trolley buses go back to April 22, 1933, when the Dayton Street Railway chose the then-new trolley bus over rebuilding streetcars lost in a carbarn fire. The last streetcar ran in 1947, but the wires stayed. The Greater Dayton RTA is still expanding the trolley network: Route 3, a new trolley line serving the east side, started in August 2025.

6. The Wright brothers' airplane has its own landmark status

Of the four buildings where Wilbur and Orville Wright ran their bicycle business, only one survives, and it is now part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, near South Williams Street. Across town at Carillon Historical Park, their 1905 Wright Flyer III is the only airplane in the country designated a National Historic Landmark. It was the machine they flew at Huffman Prairie when the airplane became practical.

7. The 1913 flood remade the city

During the 1913 flood, water rose as much as 20 feet in low parts of Dayton, and fires broke out as gas lines ruptured. NCR's carpenters built more than 200 flat-bottomed boats for rescues. That May, Daytonians gathered at the Old Courthouse and raised more than $2 million privately for flood protection, which led to the Miami Conservancy District and its system of dams. Dayton History tells the story in its Great 1913 Flood exhibit at Carillon Park.

8. Your pantry may hold a Dayton invention

Dayton History keeps a running list it calls You Can't Go a Day Without Dayton. It includes the Ritty dial cash register, Ermal Fraze's pop-top can, the Cheez-It, the electric automobile starter, the liquid crystal display, Freon and the first UPC scan, along with the Wright brothers' aviation work.

9. Some recipes here are more than a century old

Smales Pretzel Bakery traces its roots to 1906, when German-born Rudie Schaaf opened Gem City Pretzel on Warren Street. His daughter Emma Smales moved the bakery to Xenia Avenue in 1926, and a fifth-generation pretzel twister, also named Emma Smales, runs it today, still using flour, water, yeast and salt. On Brown Street, The Pine Club has served steaks since 1947, and its bar has not changed since 1954. It still takes neither reservations nor credit cards.

10. Dayton was the first certified Welcoming city

In October 2011 the Dayton City Commission unanimously adopted the Welcome Dayton plan, a community effort to help immigrants build businesses, find services and take part in civic life. In 2017 Dayton became the first city in the United States to be certified as Welcoming by the national nonprofit Welcoming America.

Ten is never quite enough for a city with this much history. If you want more, the Dayton Room at the Main Library downtown holds more than two centuries of local records, from maps and photographs to old newspapers, and Dayton History's exhibits fill Carillon Historical Park on Carillon Boulevard.