937 Area Code 🌍☎️

Dayton is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, located 40 miles north of Cincinnati and 55 miles southwest of Columbus, with a 2020 population of 137,644 and a metropolitan area of approximately 822,000 residents, making it Ohio's sixth-most and fourth-largest by city and metro area respectively. Founded on April 1, 1796, along the Great Miami River by 12 settlers known as the Thompson Party and named after Founding Father Jonathan Dayton, the city grew as a 19th-century canal town and became an innovation hub, notably home to the Wright brothers, who developed the first successful motor-operated airplane, and to the Dayton Project, a branch of the Manhattan Project that developed polonium triggers for atomic bombs. The city's economy was built on heavy manufacturing, particularly through John Henry Patterson's National Cash Register Company (NCR), founded in 1884, which manufactured the first mechanical cash registers and helped develop the US Navy Bombe code-breaking machine during World War II. Located within 500 miles of 60 percent of the nation's population and manufacturing infrastructure, Dayton serves as a major logistics hub and is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a significant research and development center for aeronautical and astronautical engineering. Today, with the decline of heavy manufacturing, Dayton's diversified service economy is anchored by defense, aerospace, and healthcare sectors, supported by institutions including Wright State University, the University of Dayton, and the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Springfield is a city in Clark County, Ohio, located in southwestern Ohio about 45 miles west of Columbus and 25 miles northeast of Dayton, serving as the county seat with a 2020 population of 58,662 and a metropolitan area population of 136,001. Founded in 1801 by James Demint and named after Springfield, Massachusetts, the city became the county seat in 1818 by a two-vote margin and gained prominence as the "Town at the End of the Pike" when the National Road reached it in 1838. Springfield's economy flourished during the 19th century with industrialists including Oliver S. Kelly, James Leffel, P. P. Mast, Benjamin H. Warder, and Asa S. Bushnell establishing manufacturing operations in the city. The city is home to Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college, and Clark State College, a community college, and features outdoor attractions including the nearly 80-mile Little Miami Scenic Trail and Buck Creek State Park with its Clarence J. Brown reservoir. Springfield's history is rooted in the Shawnee village of Piqua, where the warrior and chief Tecumseh lived from 1777 until 1780, before the village's destruction by General George Rogers Clark's forces in 1780 during the American Revolutionary War. Xenia is a city in Greene County, Ohio, located 15 miles east of Dayton in southwestern Ohio with a 2020 population of 25,441, and serves as the county seat of the Dayton metropolitan area and Miami Valley region. Founded in 1803 by Hollander-American pioneer John Paul when Ohio was admitted to the Union, the city was named "Xenia" (Greek for "hospitality") after a democratic town meeting vote decided by Laticia Davis in 1804, and was officially incorporated on October 27, 1817. The settlement developed on the historic homeland of the Shawnee Indians, whose war chief Tecumseh was born at nearby Old Chillicothe in 1768, and the city attracted pioneer industries including flour mills, sawmills, woolen mills, and pork packing plants throughout the early 19th century. The arrival of the Little Miami Railroad in 1843 and the completion of the Columbus and Xenia Railroad in 1850 stimulated industrial development and connected the city to regional markets. From 1851, Xenia Springs and the nearby Tawawa House health spa attracted tourists from Cincinnati and the South, and the latter complex was later purchased to establish Wilberforce University, a historically black college founded through collaboration between the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Church.