In 1921 , nearly the entire town of Osborn , along with the railroad ( now Norfolk Southern Railway ) , was moved two miles to a site just east of Fairfield during construction of the Huffman Dam on the Mad River . The village moved houses from the flood plain on flatbed trucks . This was necessary because of the Miami Valley Flood Control Project and the Miami Conservancy District that was begun after the Great Dayton Flood ( Dayton , Ohio ) of March 1913 . The two villages ' growth was hindered by the other 's borders , a military flying field and depot ( now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ) , township borders , and county borders . The two villages voted to merge in 1949 and completed the merger in 1950 The first business to depict the name of the new city was the large vertical sign of the Fairborn Theatre
Great Dayton Flood
Great Dayton Flood
Fairborn, Ohio