Dayton, city in southwestern Ohio and seat of Montgomery County. The city is at the confluence of the Mad, Stillwater, and Great Miami rivers and Wolf Creek. The hub of a large metropolitan area, Dayton is a commercial, transportation, cultural, and industrial center. The city has a long history of invention. Today the leading employers in Dayton include a maker of computer hardware and software—particularly for financial transactions—and a national online legal and business information service. A center of aerospace and high-technology development, Dayton was the home of aircraft pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright, and the city lays claim to being the Birthplace of Aviation. Scheduled air service is through James M. Cox Dayton International Airport, which also hosts an annual air show.
Educational institutions in Dayton include the University of Dayton (1850), United Theological Seminary (1871), the Air Force Institute of Technology (1919), Wright State University (1964), and a community college. In 1992 several geographically separated sites mostly associated with the development of aviation were designated as the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. It includes the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, the airfield where they tested their inventions, and one of their earliest airplanes, housed in Wright Hall at Carillon Historical Park. Extensive exhibits on the history of the Miami Valley are also on display at Carillon. Also associated with the national historical park is the home of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first black writers to achieve international recognition.
