Montgomery County, Ohio

Montgomery County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Dayton
Year Organized: 1803
Square Miles: 462

Court House:

451 West Third Street
County Courthouse
Dayton, OH 45422-0001

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Residents named the county in honor of Richard Montgomery, a hero of the American Revolution.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

On March 24, 1803, the Ohio legislature authorized the creation of Montgomery County. Residents named the county in honor of Richard Montgomery, a hero of the American Revolution. Previously, the county had been parts of Ross and Hamilton Counties. Wilbur and Orville Wright owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, the county seat, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was here that the Wrights developed the first powered aircraft to fly successfully

Montgomery County is located in western Ohio. It is predominantly rural. Seventeen percent of the county's 462 square miles consist of urban areas. With a population of 166,179 people, Dayton was the county's largest community in 2000. The county experienced a 2.6 percent decline in population between 1990 and 2000. There were 559, 062 people living in Montgomery County in 2000.The county averages 1,210 people per square mile.

Montgomery County flourished during the nineteenth century. With the completion of the Miami and Erie Canal in 1829, Dayton was connected to Cincinnati. In addition, nine turnpikes connected Dayton to other parts of the state. Because it was a transportation hub, Montgomery County was heavily involved in Ohio's early industrialization. By the late 1800s, the county had become the home of many different businesses. There were a number of newspapers and journals that fueled a publishing industry. Many of these publications dealt with either religious issues or agricultural interests. Some examples include Christian World, Young Catholic Messenger, Ohio Bible Teacher, as well as Farmer's Home, the Ohio Swine Journal, and the Ohio Poultry Journal. Many other businesses were related to agriculture and included mills and a number of companies manufacturing farm implements. Among the best known in the nineteenth century was the Buckeye Mower and Reaper Company. In the 1880s, John Patterson opened the National Cash Register Company in Dayton.

Today, service industries, such as health care and tourism, retail positions, and manufacturing businesses are Montgomery County's largest employers. Government ranks a distant fourth. Most government employees work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1999, the per capita income in the county was 28,113 dollars, with 11.1 percent of the people living in poverty.

Most voters in Montgomery County claim to be political independents.

Besides the Wright brothers, Montgomery County also was home to Ohio Governors James Cox and Charles Anderson. Paul Laurence Dunbar, a noted African-American author and poet lived in Dayton as well

Sources

Montgomery County, Ohio History Central, July 24, 2008,

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1981&nm=Montgomery-County

Neighboring Counties:

Miami County (north)
Clark County (northeast)
Greene County (east)
Warren County (south)
Butler County (southwest)
Preble County (west)
Darke County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Brookville	city	Incorporated Area
- Centerville	village	Incorporated Area
- Clay	township
- Clayton	city	Incorporated Area
- Dayton (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Englewood	city	Incorporated Area
- Farmersville	village	Incorporated Area
- German	township
- Germantown	village	Incorporated Area
- Huber Heights	city	Incorporated Area
- Kettering	city	Incorporated Area
- Miamisburg	city	Incorporated Area
- Moraine	city	Incorporated Area
- New Lebanon	village	Incorporated Area
- Oakwood	village	Incorporated Area
- Phillipsburg	village	Incorporated Area
- Trotwood	city	Incorporated Area
- Union	city	Incorporated Area
- Vandalia	city	Incorporated Area
- West Carrollton	city
- Wright-Patterson	UT

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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