So day followed day in the recuperation of Dayton; but, looking ahead, it was evident to the magnificent corps of expert men in charge of the work that months must elapse before all Daytonians could again live in their own homes. There were 15,000 residences to plaster and paper before they could be occupied. There were 4,500 houses to build foundations under, to straighten, re-roof, put in doors and windows, rebuild chimneys and make other repairs before their owners could move in again. There were 2,000 houses to raze and new structures to be built. The Citizens' Relief Committee, on advices from engineers, decided that this reconstruction work would require four months, even if building material could be obtained promptly. So far as the business and industrial buildings were concerned, it was estimated by architects who looked over the different premises that it would require eight months before repair work and rebuilding could be accomplished. In the interim business was done in whatever premises were available. Thousands of men were employed, together with many teams of horses, and work was pushed to the utmost in all departments. Surveys of the damage done were made and large quantities of material were ordered by telegraph, to be shipped immediately. Generations must come and go before the Dayton flood will be forgotten, and standing out in bright contrast with all else there will perhaps remain longest the inspiring picture of the energy and fortitude with which the stricken residents set about the retrievement of their city from the devastation of the angry waters. CHAPTER VI DAYTON: "THE CITY OF A THOUSAND FACTORIES" SURVIVOR OF SIX FLOODS--ESTABLISHED BY REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--OTHER OF DAYTON'S FEATURES OF INTEREST--A CITY OF CIVIC PRIDE--"A THOUSAND FACTORIES"--ITS SUCCESS. Dayton has stood in the shadow of disaster from flood ever since its foundation. No less than six times previous to the present inundation have the rivers which flow through it left their accustomed courses and brought death and destruction of property upon the town. The first of these floods occurred in 1805, the very year that Dayton was incorporated as a town. The sixth was in 1898 and the others in the years 1847, 1863, 1866 and 1886. The site of the present city was purchased in 1795 by a group of Revolutionary soldiers and laid out as a town in the following year by one of them, who named it after Jonathan Dayton, a Jerseyman who had fought in the Revolution and who later served in Congress and the United States Senate. It became the county seat of Montgomery County in 1803 and received its city charter in 1841, something more than a score of years after the opening of the Miami Canal gave a boom to its growth and prosperity.