DAYTON

city, seat (1890) of Rhea county, southeastern Tennessee, U.S., on Richland Creek near the Tennessee River, 36 miles (58 km) northeast of Chattanooga. Originally called Smith's Crossroads (c. 1820), it was renamed for Dayton, Ohio, by Cincinnati Southern Railroad engineers who constructed a bridge over the creek. The Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton was the scene of the so-called Monkey Trial (July 1021, 1925), in which John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, was found guilty of teaching evolution. The trial pitted William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution against Clarence Darrow for the defense. Bryan College (1930) was built on a hill overlooking the city as a memorial to the silver-tongued orator and lawyer-politician, who died in Dayton five days after the trial ended. The city's economy is based on small manufactures, chiefly synthetic yarns, textiles, gas heating equipment, and electrical appliances. Inc. 1895. Pop. (1990) 5,671. city, seat (1803) of Montgomery county, southwestern Ohio, U.S., 54 miles (87 km) northeast of Cincinnati, on a low floodplain of the Great Miami River, at the confluence of the Stillwater and Mad rivers and of Wolf Creek. It is the heart of a metropolitan area that includes the cities of Kettering, Miamisburg, Xenia, Fairborn, Oakwood, and Vandalia. Following the peace treaty with the Shawnee Indians, signed at Greenville (1795), the area was opened to white settlement. The town was laid out by a group of Revolutionary War veterans, including Jonathan Dayton from New Jersey, for whom it was named. It developed as a river port for the shipment of agricultural produce, mainly to New Orleans. The opening of the Miami and Erie Canal, from Dayton to Cincinnati, in 1829, and the arrival in 1851 of a railroad to Springfield stimulated Dayton's commercial and industrial growth. The town became the home of the cash register after the mechanical money drawer was invented there by James Ritty and perfected by John H. Patterson in the 1880s. The automobile self-starter was also developed there by Charles F. Kettering, who, along with Edward A. Deeds, also produced ignition systems and electric light equipment for farms. In 1892 Wilbur and Orville Wright opened their bicycle repair shop in Dayton, where they conducted experiments that led to the first sustained and controlled flight of a powered airplane, at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903; a monolith has been erected in memory of the brothers, who are buried in the city's Woodland Cemetery. In 1913 the most disastrous of a series of floods occurred in the area. After this, the Miami Conservancy District, a comprehensive flood-control project, was created. Dayton is now the heart of a large diversified urban complex and a market and distribution centre for a fertile agricultural region. It is also a national aviation centre, stemming from the establishment of experimental aviation laboratories during World Wars I and II and WrightPatterson Air Force Base (1946), with its modern aviation complex, Air Force Institute of Technology (1947), and museum (1971). Manufactures include auto parts and equipment, machine tools, refrigerators, air conditioners, computers, accounting machines, paper, rubber, putty, and mastics. Magazine printing is also important. Within the metropolitan area are the University of Dayton (Roman Catholic; 1850), Wright State University (1967), the United Theological Seminary (United Methodist; 1871), Sinclair Community College (1887), and Miami-Jacobs (junior) College (1860). Dayton has an art institute, a museum of natural history, and a symphony orchestra. The Dayton home of black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (18721906) is preserved as a state memorial and museum. Recreational facilities include Carillon Park, noted for concerts and historical exhibits (including a replica of the Wright Brothers bicycle shop). Inc. town, 1805; city, 1841. Pop. (1990) city, 182,005; Dayton-Springfield MSA, 951,270; (1994 est.) city, 178,540; (1995 est.) Dayton-Springfield MSA, 956,412.