The story
Read it all →How Dayton came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Dayton.
A post office called Dayton has been in operation since 1877. The city was named after Dayton, Ohio.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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History · Dayton
Dayton’s post office opened in 1877, and 34% of its homes were built before 1940
Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1923 on, and the census since 1880.
1877first post office
0on the National Register
34%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
2famous people
Quick answers
How Dayton began
When was Dayton founded?
1877
The Dayton post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, West Dayton (1858), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 239 in 18802020 census: 772149 years
Founding year: the first Dayton post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Dayton’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
★ What stands out · Help out
Start Dayton’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Dayton’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Dayton, 1876–1913
Passages that mention Dayton, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Fort Dodge and Webster County, Iowa1913 · page 189Read the page →
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assisted his father with the work of. the farm until he was nineteen, when he started out to earn his own living. He returned to Illinois, where he worked as a farm hand for a year, and then came back to Dayton and entered the employ of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad as a construction hand. During the succeeding two years he followed the carpenter's trade in Dayton, but at the expiration of that period he accepted a position as clerk in the store of John Lundeen for two and one-half years.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Centennial history of Webster county1876 · page 16Read the page →
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Dayton, tlie largsst village in t'.ve county, except Fort Do Ige, is situated on the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 14, townsliip 86, range 28. It was laid out, platted and recorded as a town by Benjamin F. Allison, in November, 18.56.
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History of Fort Dodge and Webster County, Iowa1913 · page 53Read the page →
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trade in the home office, working nights, mornings and Saturdays, and since that time has followed that business as his chosen occupation. On November 26, 1894, he left Macedonia for Dayton, and began work on the Dayton Review, under J. G. Durell, who at that time owned and published the paper. He retained this position until February i, 1898, when he in partnership with Emory A. Rolfe, principal of the Dayton public schools, purchased the plant and began operating the newspaper. On October 12,
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Dayton, 1858 to 1923
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
- 19th century
- 1858Post officeThe West Dayton post office opens
- 1877Post officeThe West Dayton post office closes
- 1877Post officeThe Dayton post office opens
- 1879
Born hereJoseph A. A. Burnquist is born here - 1886
In the archiveMusquaka, Iowa (Ambrose, Iowa), Dayton Township - 20th century
- 1906Born hereGertrude Mary Cox is born here
- 1923
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade
Dayton, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
1890s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
2021
2016
2004On the map
Dayton on the map, 1923 to 1965
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Dayton. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1923Lehigh sheet · 1:62,500U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Dayton.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewMusquaka, Iowa (Ambrose, Iowa), Dayton Township, 1886
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Dayton’s page.
Retake this view · +15People over time
Dayton, census by census
Between 239 and 941 people in every census since 1880.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Dayton’s Wikipedia page.
Famous people
See all →2 famous people were born in Dayton
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Places that used to be
Lost post offices, places now gone and burying grounds
Dayton’s post office has been open since 1877. Another post office, West Dayton, opened and closed inside today’s town.
West Dayton
Dayton
18501940today
Gone or out of use
Daytonlocale
1cemetery inside Dayton
Dayton
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Dayton’s history
What year was Dayton founded?
The Dayton post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Memory lane
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Start a conversation
Sources
Where this page comes from
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.