Dayton is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lyon County, Nevada, United States.

Immigrants stopping there for water would decide whether to follow the river south or continue west, giving the location its first name, Ponderers Rest.

By 1850, placer miners settled at the mouth of Gold Cañon, working sand bars deposited over the millennia along the path of the creek.

With the 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode, newly founded Gold Hill and Virginia City, 6 miles (10 km) to the north, assumed prominence and most miners headed up the cañon.

The 1869 opening of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad shifted ore processing upstream to the Carson River Canyon, but Dayton continued to serve as a lesser center of commerce and government.

The coming of the Carson & Colorado Railroad in 1881 brought back some prosperity to Dayton, but the population nonetheless hovered around 500 residents until after World War I.

Residents of the growing agricultural community of Yerington to the south called for a shift of the Lyon County seat, which occurred in 1911, leaving Dayton with a shrinking economy and population.

By the 1920s, the Lincoln Highway was bringing some tourists to Dayton, but the town remained a quiet reminder of a time when Nevada's gold and silver strikes captured national attention.

[4] In 1961, Dayton won fame as a setting for John Huston's film, The Misfits, the last movie appearances of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.

Beginning in the 1990s, Dayton experienced phenomenal growth as residential development expanded on the east side of the Carson River.

Dayton points to the fact that when the wagon train of pioneer Lucena Parsons stayed at the mouth of Gold Cañon (now Dayton) for several weeks waiting for the snow to leave the Sierra Nevada, she recorded in her journal that Colonel Reese and his party passed along the Carson River as they headed for the Sierra foothills to establish Mormon Station (today's Genoa).