File:Dayton Skyline from Patterson Boulevard and 5th Street, Dayton, OH.jpg

English: Founded in 1796, the city of Dayton, Ohio is located along the Great Miami River, and was incorporated in 1805, being chartered as a city in 1841. The city was named for American Revolutionary War veteran Jonathan Dayton, who was a signer of the US Constitution, and owned considerable land holdings in the region. The city initially grew in response to the settlement of farms in the surrounding area, with further growth being spurred by the completion of the Miami and Erie Canal to Dayton in 1829, which was finally completed to Toledo in 1845. The city grew rapidly in the late 19th Century due to industrialization with multiple large and prominent companies being headquartered in the city, manufacturing everything from cash registers to the earliest airplanes, being the home of notable inventors and innovators including the Wright Brothers, Charles F. Kettering, Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Ritty, and Arthur E. Morgan. Dayton is where the airplane was invented, and had the most patents filed per capita around the turn of the 20th Century. The city grew outwards in the 20th Century with the establishment of suburbs, which accelerated after the Great Dayton Flood in 1913, redlining in the 1930s, and post-World War II white flight, as well as race riots in the 1950s and 1960s. The city saw a decline in its population beginning in the 1980s in response to deindustrialization, with the economy since diversifying into other sectors to make up for the job losses from manufacturing. Today, the city is the fourth-largest municipality and metropolitan area in the state of Ohio, behind Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland, and has a revitalizing downtown, charming historic districts, and suburbs that are beginning to merge with those of nearby Cincinnati.