Dayton, Texas

Everything Dayton is known for

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Philip Griffin Band
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Rivers & Roads in Song near Dayton

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Dayton.

US Route 90 9 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 10 36 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs Interstate 45 8 songs

History of Dayton

The Short Line Ross Sterling Built to Move Oil RoadyGoat

Dayton's importance was never really about Dayton; it was about being the junction where a busy main line met the oil country to the south. In 1917 a Humble Oil executive named Ross S. Sterling, who would later become governor of Texas, incorporated the Dayton-Goose Creek Railway here. The new Goose Creek oilfield down near Galveston Bay was gushing, and there was no efficient way to haul its crude to market. Sterling's answer was twenty-five miles of fresh track running south from Dayton, where it tied into the established Texas and New Orleans line, to the booming field and the Baytown refinery. Construction started at Dayton in 1917, the road reached Goose Creek on May 1, 1918, and an extension carried it on to Baytown the next year. The little railroad turned a tidy profit hauling oil; by 1926 its freight revenue dwarfed its passenger earnings many times over. For a few crucial years, the tank cars rolling out of greater Houston's first great oil boom all passed through this Liberty County junction town. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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The Dayton Brothers Who Governed Two Places at Once RoadyGoat

Few small Texas towns can claim two governors born within a few years of each other, but Dayton can. Marion Price Daniel Sr. was born here on October 10, 1910, the son of M. P. and Nannie Partlow Daniel. He went on to one of the most complete political careers in state history, holding office in all three branches of Texas government: Speaker of the Texas House, Attorney General, United States Senator, and finally the 38th Governor of Texas from 1957 to 1963, before later serving on the Texas Supreme Court. His younger brother, Bill Daniel, born in 1915, took a different road to the same title, serving as the appointed governor of the U.S. Territory of Guam in the early 1960s. So for a stretch in the early sixties, both brothers from this one Liberty County town carried the title of governor at the same time, one in Austin and one in the western Pacific. Price Daniel built his law practice just up the road in Liberty, and the family ranch where he's buried lies nearby. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Texas State Library.)

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The Hill With Plants Found Nowhere Else Around Here RoadyGoat

Out toward the Trinity River east of town rises Davis Hill, an unlikely bump of high ground in a landscape that is otherwise dead flat and swampy. The slight rise is enough to change everything biologically. As the ground lifts away from the soggy bottomlands, soils drain better and a different world of plants takes hold, making Davis Hill one of the most diverse plant communities in the entire Texas state park system. Botanists have catalogued species here you have to travel many miles inland to find again, including the delicate shadow witch orchid, which grows in shaded ravines over clay soil alongside cypress, ferns, and little bluestem grass. Most remarkably, researchers studying the site have identified two plant species that appear to be undescribed, meaning they may be new to science entirely. Texas acquired the roughly 1,700-acre tract as Davis Hill State Natural Area in 1983, named for Gen. James Davis, a War of 1812 and Republic of Texas veteran who once kept a home on the hilltop. The park remains closed to the public while the state works to assemble enough land for visitor access. (Source: Texas Parks and Wildlife.)

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Daniel, Marion Price, Sr.

1939

Price Daniel, governor of Texas, son of Marion Price and Nannie Blanch (Partlow) Daniel, was born on October 10, 1910, in Dayton, Texas. After earning a law degree from Baylor University in 1932 he opened a law practice in Liberty, Liberty County. He became known through his defense of two of the county's most infamous murder suspects, and used the popularity to win a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1939. As an outspoken member of the "Immortal 56," an alliance of state legislators adamantly opposed to a state sales tax, Daniel earned the respect of his colleagues and in early 1943 was unanimously elected speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. After serving one term in that office he enlisted in the army as a private and the following year graduated from officers' candidate school in Lexington, Virginia, as a judge advocate general. He was discharged from the army in May 1946 with the rank of captain, after having served in the Pacific and Japan. He returned to Texas and conducted a successful whirlwind campaign to become the youngest state attorney general in the United States. In his six-year tenure, Daniel disposed of more than 5,000 lawsuits, served on 25 state boards and agencies, composed more than 2,000 bills for the Texas legislature, and successfully defended more money and land claims than any previous attorney general . His three best-known crusades were the defense of the University of Texas law school in its refusal to admit Heman Marion Sweatt , a black postal clerk; the disbandment of a majority of the state's organized gambling operations; and the defense of Texas ownership of its tidelands against federal encroachment ( see TIDELANDS CONTROVERSY ). When the United States Supreme Court refused to allow Texas to retain the tidelands, valuable offshore lands rich in oil that Daniel argued belonged to Texas because of an agreement in the terms of the state's annexation , he defied the Democratic party by endorsing the Republican, states'-rights candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower . In 1952, Daniel was elected to the United States Senate on a "Texas Democrat" platform. He immediately drafted a tidelands bill similar to the one President Harry Truman had previously vetoed, and on May 22, 1953, Eisenhower signed it into law. As a result the Permanent School Fund has received an infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars. While in the Senate, Daniel directed a nationwide narcotics probe that eventually resulted in the most stringent narcotics regulation in United States history, and nearly succeeded in the passage of legislation designed to reform the electoral college. Declaring that he would "rather be governor of Texas than President of the United States," Daniel returned home to run for governor and, upon his nomination in 1956, resigned from the Senate. He was reelected governor in 1958 and 1960. During his tenure 131 out of 151 of his major proposals were enacted into law. He was successful in pushing through a heavy legislative program that ranged from highways to prison reform, water conservation, higher teachers' salaries, and improved care for the mentally impaired. Being a devoted student of history, Daniel worked to establish the Texas State Library and Archives Building, which he virtually designed himself, to house many Texas papers and documents that had been subject to neglect. In 1961, despite his strident objections, he could only watch in his third term as the legislature approved a sales tax after two called special sessions. He allowed the tax to become law without his signature to keep the state from going broke. Much of the electorate blamed him for the sales tax, partly because store clerks developed the practice of ringing up sales and then saying, "Now, let's have a penny for Price." After losing a bid for an unprecedented fourth term in 1962, Daniel returned to his law practice and took cases in both Liberty and Austin. In 1967, President Lyndon Baines Johnson appointed hi

Tsha Handbook → · 3.6 mi away

The Runaway Scrape

1836

Famous flight of Texians to escape Santa Anna's invading Mexican army. Tales of the Alamo butchery on March 6, 1836, and the continuing retreat of Gen. Sam Houston's army prompted colonists to abandon homes and property and seek refuge in east Texas. Families left beds unmade, breakfast uneaten, and ran for their lives, traveling in wagons, carts, sleds, on foot, or by horseback, dropping gear as they went. Many Liberty Countians remained at home until mid-April, helping refugees struggle toward the Sabine in order to cross to safety in the United States. Terrible hardships plagued the runaways trying to ferry the swollen Trinity River. In rain-soaked camps many children died of measles and other ills. Wading through flooded bottomlands, the wayfarers came with relief to the prairie and the Samaritans in Liberty. After resting a few days, tending the sick, and burying the dead, most of the wanderers moved on toward Louisiana. East of Liberty, stragglers heard the cannonading at the Battle San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Fearing that Santa Anna's legions had whipped the ragged Texian forces, they hurried on, but shortly heard joyful news: "Turn back, turn back". Freedom had been won for them by Sam Houston's army.

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Annie Colbert - Rosenwald School

1890

BY 1883, LIBERTY COUNTY MAINTAINED 53 SCHOOLS, INCLUDING 19 AFRICAN AMERICAN SCHOOLS. THE AVERAGE SCHOOL TERM WAS THREE MONTHS FOR AGES 8-14 BUT THE ONLY SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN IN DAYTON WAS LOCATED NEAR THE SETTLEMENTS OF STILSON AND FOUTS. 
 IN THE LATE 1890s, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HIRED THEIR FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TEACHER, ANNIE (FAIRCHILD) COLBERT (1866-1961). BORN IN HOUSTON, SHE ATTENDED HOUSTON SCHOOLS AND THEN TILLOTSON INSTITUTE IN AUSTIN. SHE TAUGHT AT THE GREGORY SCHOOL UNTIL SHE MARRIED RAILROAD PORTER TONY COLBERT.
 FORBIDDEN TO TEACH SCHOOL IN HOUSTON AS A MARRIED WOMAN, SHE AND HER HUSBAND MOVED TO DAYTON WHERE ANNIE ACCEPTED A POSITION AT A ONE-ROOM SHACK. UPON ARRIVAL, SHE GATHERED HER STUDENTS AND, TOGETHER, THEY BUILT AN IMPROVED ONE-ROOM FRAME SCHOOLHOUSE NEAR LUKE AND PRATER STREETS. MRS. COLBERT CONTINUED TO TEACH THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS OF DAYTON UNTIL 1918, INSTILLING THE VALUE OF EDUCATION IN HER STUDENTS AND WITHIN THE COMMUNITY.
 IN 1918, THE AFRICAN AMERICAN SCHOOL RELOCATED TO A SITE NEAR THE ST. PAUL AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH UNTIL 1927, WHEN THE SCHOOL DISTRICT BUILT THE DAYTON COLORED SCHOOL. SADLY, IT BURNED IN 1929. THAT SAME YEAR, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND COMMUNITY PARTNERED WITH THE ROSENWALD SCHOOL BUILDING PROGRAM TO CONSTRUCT A SCHOOL FOR THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY. THE NEW FOUR-ROOM ROSENWALD SCHOOL WAS DEDICATED IN 1934 AND NAMED IN HONOR OF ANNIE COLBERT, A PIONEER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN EDUCATION IN SOUTHEAST TEXAS. 
(2019

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Day, Aaron, Jr.

1917

Aaron Day, Jr., African-American United States Army captain during World War I and insurance executive, was born in Dayton, Liberty County, Texas, on January 18, 1891, to Aaron Day, Sr., and Flora (also known as Florence) (Spaight) Day. The book Homelands and Waterways: The American Journey of the Bond Family, 1846-1926 by Adele Logan Alexander, a professor of history at George Washington University, contains, among a plethora of other material, a fairly detailed account of the first half of Day's life. Isaiah Day, a White man for whom Dayton, Texas, was named, had nine children with his slave Amanda Cribbs. The Blacks in the community called her Amanda Day. Fairly late in life, and many years after slavery had been abolished, Isaiah confronted Amanda at the water well and demanded that she submit to him sexually. When she refused, he struck her head with a heavy wooden water bucket, killing her. Isaiah Day and Amanda Cribbs Day were Aaron Junior's paternal grandparents. Aaron Junior attended grade school in Houston. Then, at the age of fifteen, he entered Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College and graduated in 1910. By that time, Day's potential for leadership and his grasp of the sciences had become obvious. Upon graduation, Day was hired by his alma mater as a chemistry instructor, a position he kept for seven years, except for about two years that he spent in graduate school on a scholarship at the University of Chicago (the summers of 1911 and 1912, and the complete academic year of 1913-14). He did not take a degree there, but he was a serious scholar, and he compiled an enviable record of accomplishment. In June 1917 Day volunteered for World War I service in the United States Army. He was commissioned as a captain and placed in command of Company B of the 317th Ammunition Train, Ninety-second Division; the company consisted of African-American soldiers. Day's commission made him quite unique, as the army had strict standards and disproportionately smaller quotas for the recruitment of Black officers. However, he was an excellent officer candidate. The army found him to be in excellent health, with "perfect" eyesight and hearing, and an erect posture. He was a very good equestrian and marksman. He had an advanced education, and as a college instructor, he was experienced in dealing with young people. Day received training (without pay) at Fort Des Moines in Iowa. Upon completion of his training, he was dispatched to Camp Funston, an annex to Fort Riley in northeast Kansas. There Day received his captain's commission and his first paycheck.That winter (of 1917-18) a cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic struck Camp Funston, followed in March by the first diagnosed case in the United States of the influenza pandemic that would spread worldwide and kill millions. In early June, Captain Day and his company were ordered to Camp Upton on Long Island, New York, to prepare to embark overseas. A few days later they sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the steamship Covington . In late June they arrived in France. As the company progressed toward the Western Front, they witnessed firsthand the horrors of war. Captain Day and his men participated in the Argonne Forest and Metz offensives. Day and Lt. William Dyer, the company's physician, looked on; Dyer later wrote in his journal that the bodies of dead Allied soldiers "were brought back on trucks, piled in like cordwood and dripping blood from head to foot." In many ways Captain Day's Black troops were exposed to hostilities on two fronts: they experienced myriad instances of racial discrimination and harassment from their fellow soldiers while simultaneously fighting for their country. Following the end of the war, the discrimination continued unabated. As Adele Alexander pointed out in Homelands and Waterways : "Following the armistice, the army denied most Negro officers the opportunities it granted Whites of the same ranks to enroll in courses at European universities.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.6 mi away

Dayton, TX

1839

Dayton, on U.S. Highway 90 three miles west of Liberty in southwestern Liberty County, was first called West Liberty and was considered part of the original town of Liberty, founded in 1831. The Trinity River divided the two parts of the town: Liberty was on its east bank, and West Liberty was on a hill three miles west of the river. A new road and a ferry directly connected the two. Both parts of the town were located on the four-league Mexican land grant appropriated for the capital of the old municipality of Santísima Trinidad de la Libertad, which later became known as Liberty. The postmaster of West Liberty from March 25, 1839, through September 15, 1841, was A. Thouvenin, probably the same man as Arnold Thouvenin, who obtained a quarter-league Mexican land grant in Polk County in April 1835. The West Liberty post office was apparently discontinued after a few years. Land was designated for a school in 1847. The schoolhouse was accepted on December 31, 1853, by the board of trustees of the Corporation of the Town of Liberty. Also in 1853, A. N. B. Thompson was authorized to survey and plat the town of West Liberty. During the Civil War thirty-three ladies of West Liberty wrote to Governor Francis R. Lubbock in January 1863, petitioning him to relieve Mr. Sol Andrews of his military duties so that he might continue his vocation of manufacturer of looms and spinning wheels, as cloth for clothing was desperately needed. Sometime after 1854 West Liberty also became known as Day's Town, for I. C. Day, a wealthy landowner who resided just to the south of the town on the Munson league. The flag stop for the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, completed in 1860, was known variously as West Liberty, Days Station, and Dayton Station. The name Dayton was applied to the local post office in 1877, though the official name of the town remained West Liberty until the mid-1880s. In 1885 Dayton reported a population of sixty, and in 1890 a post office, a school, and two churches served its 239 residents. Lumbering and cattle raising were the chief industries until James E. Berry helped establish a drainage system to make rice a major crop. Texas governor Marion Price Daniel, Sr. , was born in Dayton on October 10, 1910; his brother Bill Daniel, governor of the United States Territory of Guam from 1961 through 1963, was born in Dayton on November 20, 1915. By 1910 the town had a bank, two cotton gins, a weekly newspaper, and 750 inhabitants. Dayton was recorded as an incorporated municipality on May 3, 1911. The mayor was W. M. Babcock, and aldermen were W. T. Jamison, J. H. Marshall, J. A. Coleman, and J. D. Spear. Town records indicate that the community was reincorporated in 1925. Oil development during the 1920s brought new industries. By 1940 Dayton reported 1,207 residents and seventy businesses and was listed as a railroad center. The population increased steadily from 3,367 in 1965 to 6,201 in 1988. In 1989 the largest school population in the county made the Dayton Independent School District the major employer in the city. At that time Dayton operated under a mayor-council form of city government . In 1990 Dayton had a population of 5,151, and in 2017 the population reached 7,995.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.6 mi away

The Trinity River

1690

As the longest river with its drainage basin entirely within Texas, the Trinity River's watershed covers 18,000 square miles flowing 715 river miles though 37 Texas counties. Native Americans referred to the Trinity as the Arkikosa or Daycoa. La Salle called it the River of Canoes. In 1690, Alonso De León chose La Santísima Trinidad from which the name Trinity is derived. In 1831, Mexican land commissioner, Jose Francisco Madero, petitioned the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas for exclusive navigation rights. Before he could exercise his right, the Texas Revolution began.
Steamboats stimulated the thriving commerce in southeast Texas. In 1838, The Branch T. Archer became the first to navigate the Trinity. A meat-packing plant was established in the early 1840s by the English firm Jones & Co. at Liberty Landing. Barrels of meat were processed and shipped to Galveston for transport to the West Indies. Stern-wheel and side-wheel steamers were propelled by current or poling, carrying passengers and cargo on as many as four decks.
During the Civil War, Alabama-Coushatta Indians transported military supplies and boats from Anderson County to Confederates in Liberty. After the war, costly rail freight kept river traffic competitive. A gala celebration in Dallas in 1893 celebrated the arrival of the H.A. Harvey, Jr. arriving from Galveston in 2 months and 10 days.
Supporters of navigation formed the Trinity River Canal Association in 1930 to lobby Congress for flood control and conservation. In 1955, the Trinity River Authority was created by the state to develop and maintain a comprehensive plan for water resources and services to the citizens in the Trinity River Basin.
 (1970, 2017)

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Things to Do in Dayton

historical 23.4 mi away
Battleship Texas

The last surviving WWI-era dreadnought. Fought at D-Day and Iwo Jima.
historical 23.6 mi away
San Jacinto Monument

Taller than the Washington Monument. Where Texas won independence in 18 minutes.
historical 23.6 mi away
San Jacinto Monument

On April 21 1836 Sam Houston and nine hundred Texans caught Santa Annas army napping at San Jacinto and won Texas independence in eighteen minutes. Six hundred…

Sports in Dayton

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 5A · Football

Dayton Broncos — Dayton — a college & pro athletic pipeline

3 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Dayton High School, a proud 5A institution here in Dayton, Texas, has a history of producing athletes who have gone on to compete at high levels. The Bronco spirit has been carried forward by several alumni who made their mark in major college and professional sports. These individuals represent the dedication and talent fostered within our community and on the fields and courts of Dayton.

Among those who have achieved notable athletic careers are Don Brown, a football player who played as a running back in the American Football League. Aaron Ripkowski, an American football fullback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, also hails from Dayton High. Additionally, Mike Mabry, an American football center, is another alumnus who continued his football career beyond high school.

Pro/D1 alumni
3
Class
5A
Founded
1895
Key Players
  • Don Brown — (Class of 1955), football player who played one season as a running back in the American F
  • Aaron Ripkowski — (Class of 2011), American football fullback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Foot
  • Mike Mabry — (Class of 1998), American football center
The moment

Aaron Ripkowski played as an American football fullback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Dayton

312 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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