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(pronounced Zeen-yuh) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Greene County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio 21 miles from Dayton and is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name comes from the Greek word Xenia (
), which means "hospitality". Many of its residents supported the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War.
As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 24,164. A more recent 2008 estimate puts the population at 27,291.
Xenia was founded in 1803, the year Ohio was admitted into the Union. In that year, pioneer John Paul bought 2,000 acres (8 km²) of land from Thomas and Elizabeth Richardson of Hanover County, Virginia, for "1050 pounds current moneys of Virginia." Paul influenced county commissioners to locate the town seat on this land at the forks of the Shawnee Creeks.
Joseph C. Vance was named to survey the site and lay out the town. The following year, he bought the town site of from John Paul for $250. The name of the new village was chosen in typically democratic fashion. Vance called a town meeting to discuss possible names. The committee had considered several suggestions without reaching any decision. Then the Rev. Robert Armstrong proposed the name "Xenia," meaning "hospitality" in Greek, because of the fine hospitality extended to him in this friendly community. When a tie developed, Laticia Davis, wife of Owen Davis, was invited to cast the deciding ballot. She voted for "Xenia."
The first session of the Ohio General Assembly created Greene County from the Northwest Territory, embracing the homeland of the Shawnee Indians. Their chief tribal village was north of Xenia at old Chillicothe, now called Old Town. The Shawnee war chief Tecumseh was born there in 1768.
William Beattie was Xenia's first businessman. In 1804, he opened a tavern which became a center of community affairs. In 1804, John Marshall built Xenia's first home. The first log school house was constructed in 1805, and, that same year, Rev. James Towler became the town's first postmaster. The growing community soon attracted many pioneer industries - flour mills, sawmills, woolen mills, pork packing plants, oil mills, and tow mills.
Xenia was incorporated by an act of the legislature in 1817 and became a city in 1834. However, it was the arrival of the Little Miami Railroad (now the site of the Little Miami Scenic Trail, which passes through Xenia Station ) in 1843 which gave the city its first industrial impetus. On March 2, 1850 the Ohio General Assembly rode from Columbus, Ohio to Xenia and back on the newly completed Columbus and Xenia Railroad.
The town progressed rapidly during the mid-nineteenth century. Artificial gas was provided in the 1840s and continued in use until natural gas was made available in 1905. The first fire engine house was built in 1831; the telephone came to Xenia in 1879; electricity in 1881 and a water works system in 1886. Xenia opened its first free public library in 1899. By 1900 the city was operating its own sewage system.
Organized under a federal form of government, Xenia elected Cornelius Clark as its first mayor in 1834. On January 1, 1918, the commission-manager plan succeeded the old form of municipal government. The Xenia of today still operates under this commission-manager system.