2 or the McKee Purchase, it ceded a large tract of land lying between Lake Erie and the Thames River, including the area currently known as Chatham-Kent.

[11] It confirmed provisional agreements, reached in earlier years,[12]: xi  for the Chippewa to cede an area to the north that adjoined much of the upper boundary of the McKee Purchase.

[12]: viii Paving the way for settlement, systematic surveys along the Thames and the Sydenham began in the 1790s under Patrick McNiff and Abraham Iredell, who were deputy surveyors, successively, of the Western District.

[21]: 56 col.1 By 1849, a steam-powered sawmill and a grist-mill in the neighbouring Dawn Settlement were helping drive the economy of a logging-based community slowly expanding on both banks of the head of navigation of the Sydenham River.

[22]: 103 The Dawn Settlement was a community composed of refugees from slavery and freedmen and women, and an important end-point of the Underground Railroad's overland and maritime routes.

The logging, lumber and cordwood industries expanded, supporting woodworking factories producing hubs, spokes, wheels and other components for carriage and wagon manufacturers and shops both local and further afield.

[29] In the 1880s, clearing the Sydenham of hardwood logs that had sunk during their driving and rafting, together with improvements to Dresden's turning-basin, gave a boost to the shipbuilding industry and the shipping trade.

[8]: 10–11  A railway was also used to move logs from the northern forest tract to the banks of the Sydenham: from 1884 to 1897, a 36 in (910 mm) narrow-gauge line using Shay locomotives was laid by the Dawn Tramway Company for this purpose.

[28]: 44 Around 110 men from Dresden served in World War I, judging by the number of maple leaves (each representing a person) on the service flag[44] made by the local chapter (formed in 1914)[45] of IODE.

In 1945, the Chatham-based radio station CFCO began broadcasting a weekly program that featured a regular "Welcome Home" slot for returning servicemen and women, including those from Dresden.

[28]: 12  Ice-jams in the waterway during spring thaws,[49]: 80  exacerbated by log-jams caused by floodwater sweeping stacked logs into the river,[28]: 11  made matters worse.

[51] How to tackle the problem was debated in Dresden and other affected communities for several years,[52][53] and involved discussions with the Sydenham Valley (later St. Clair Region) Conservation Authority.

The approach chosen, the Dresden Floodplain Acquisition Program, is a buy-out scheme, initiated in the 1970s, that aims to reduce flood damage by restricting development in high-risk areas and flood-proofing vulnerable properties.

[57] Following the flood of 1968 and the intervention of the Conservation Authority, community organizations (including the Horticultural Society, Rotary, and IODE) worked to enhance Dresden's amenities.

[58] The floodplain acquired additional landscaped parks, an arboretum featuring the area's Carolinian forest flora, and in 2003, a 5.8 km Trillium Trail with a historical walk section.

[74] Annual, three-day "Civic Fests" in the late 1970s and early 1980s raised funds for repairing and maintaining what is now the Ken Houston Memorial Agricultural Centre.

CR 15, skirting Dresden to the south, links the community to Wallaceburg in the west, and runs southeast, via Kent Bridge, to Rondeau Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Erie.

Its responsibilities include the provision, management or oversight of water treatment, parks, libraries, garbage collection, public transit, land-use planning, traffic signs and lights, police, paramedics, fire services, sewers, homeless shelters, childcare, and recreation centres.

[102] Ontario's responsibilities include health, education, river and road vehicle licensing, energy, human rights, natural resources, the environment, and social services.

The campaign culminated in March 1954, when Burnett was part of a large delegation of labour, church and civil society organizations that presented the case for legislation directly to Ontario Premier Leslie Frost and his cabinet.

On the basis of his recommendations, Charles Daley, the minister of labour, declined to prosecute two Dresden restaurant owners who had refused to serve Black people.

[138] To test this assertion, Hugh Burnett, Bromley Armstrong and Ruth Lor Malloy, together with a reporter, went to Kay's Café, Morley McKay's restaurant, on 29 October 1954.

[143] In 2000, the NFB released the 47-minute documentary Journey to Justice, an examination of the fight for Black civil rights from the 1930s to the 1950s that places The Dresden Story in historical context.

Between 1948 and 1956, the National Unity Association (NUA) of Chatham, Dresden and North Buxton, under the leadership of Hugh R. Burnett, waged a campaign for racial equality and social justice.

[166] The Authority is responsible for reducing risks to life and property from flooding and erosion; water and land stewardship; forestry; wildlife habitat creation; and outdoor recreation.

[164]: 403 Over 80% of the landscape around Dresden is cropland or pasture, while 15% is deciduous forest (there is little coniferous), found mainly in parks, stewardship lands,[k] and natural heritage[l] areas.

Bird species include the cardinal, wood thrush, screech-owl, great horned owl, mourning dove, green heron, pileated and red-bellied woodpecker, red-tailed hawk, northern harrier, and wild turkey.

[173] As Dresden is outside the snowbelt, which begins near London, Ontario, winter precipitation is usually low and snow-cover intermittent throughout the season, with an average annual snowfall of only 84.6 centimetres (33.3 in).

In Dresden, two honour rolls inside St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church list the names of parishioners who served in the military in World Wars I and II.

Starting in 2013 with the digitization of books of remembrance, by the end of 2023 it had accumulated entries for over 10,000 people, drawing on military records, newspaper reports, and submissions by members of the public.