Fairborn is a city in Greene County, Ohio, United States.

The city is home to Wright State University, which serves nearly 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

After the Great Dayton Flood of 1913, the region and state created a conservation district here and, in the 1920s, began building Huffman Dam to control the Mad River.

Residents of Osborn were moved with their houses to an area alongside Fairfield.

[7] The area of the village of Fairfield was settled by European Americans before Ohio was admitted as a state.

Pioneers migrating northward and westward from Kentucky and Virginia considered this area near the Mad River desirable for settlement.

A local Native American chief, possibly a Shawnee, made peace and exchanged prisoners with leaders of the settlement.

He said to William Cozad that, when he looked out from Reed's Hill over the town, Yonder lies a fair field.

The settlement allowed the railroad to be built through it after the nearby town of Fairfield had refused such construction.

From 1950 to 1970, the city grew to six times its former population, surpassing Xenia (the county seat) as the most populous city in the county, due largely to development and expansion of the nearby US Air Force Base.

Southwestern Portland Cement, another major employer in the region, operated the largest factory in the city during this period, mining the locally exposed Brassfield Formation.

Until the mid-1960s, the city of Fairborn prohibited African Americans from living there and declared it was a sundown town.

Officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are credited with working with the city residents to end such policies, especially as the United States military was integrated beginning in 1948.

[9] The development of Interstate 675 began in the 1960s to serve as an eastern bypass of Dayton.

It has been described as the largest, most diverse and organizationally complex base in the Air Force.

Though Wright State has a Dayton address, it is legally within Fairborn jurisdiction.

[11] Its students included children of military assigned to the Air Force base.

Fairborn hosts an annual Sweet Corn Festival every August and the USAF marathon every September.

Fairborn also contains 2 nature preserves, totaling 242 acres, managed by Greene County Parks and Trails.

The Beaver Creek Wetlands Association, a private non-profit organization, also manages a 130 acre nature preserve within Fairborn's jurisdiction.