[8] The city's name comes from the Greek word Xenia (ξενία), which means "hospitality".

The first session of the Ohio General Assembly created Greene County from the Northwest Territory.

Their chief tribal village was north of Xenia at Old Chillicothe, now called Old Town.

[10] On October 27, 1817, the petition for incorporation was granted by the Court and Xenia became a municipal corporation.

From the summer of 1851, tourists would come from Cincinnati, as well as plantations from the South, to visit the nearby Xenia Springs and Tawawa House, a hotel and health spa about three miles away.

After it went out of business, the complex was purchased for use as Wilberforce College, a historically black college founded by a collaboration between the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Church.

By 1860 most of the 200 students were mixed-race children of wealthy white fathers from the South, planters and businessmen who were prevented from getting them educated there.

In the early years of the war, the college closed briefly after Southerners withdrew their children.

[12] On Wednesday morning, February 13, 1861, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln made a brief appearance in the city as his inaugural train traveled from Cincinnati east to Columbus.

He gave a short speech; the traveling reporter from the New York Times did not record it as Lincoln expressed sentiments that he had repeated in previous stops.

According to the Times writer, "a very large crowd assembled, and amid the firing of a cannon and enthusiasm, Mr. Lincoln addressed them from the rear car, reiterating what he had said before.".

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.

Following the Civil War, the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home was built in Xenia.

On January 1, 1918, the current city commission-manager plan succeeded the old form of municipal government.

The disaster killed 34 people (including two Ohio National Guardsmen who died days later in a related fire), injured an additional 1,150, destroyed almost half of the city's buildings, and left 10,000 people homeless.

[17] The city's plight was featured in the national news, including a 1974 NBC television documentary, Tornado!, hosted by Floyd Kalber.

In recognition of their coverage of this tornado, the staff of the Xenia Daily Gazette won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting in 1975.

After the 1974 tornado outbreak, the city purchased a system of five Federal Signal Thunderbolt sirens for warning.

The one exception — the B&O line west of town — was not converted because it closely paralleled the PRR mainline for most of its length.

Xenia was served by two interurban railways until the 1940s: In the postwar period, automobile ownership increased, and the federal government subsidized the construction of numerous interstate highways.

Today Xenia is centrally located in the "transportation triangle" formed by three major interstate highways: I-70, I-71, and I-75.

Before the creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway system, U.S. 68 was one of the main southward routes from the major city of Detroit, Michigan.

Xenia has, or once had, the following industries: The annual Dayton Hamvention is held at the Greene County Fairgrounds, having been moved from the now closed Hara Arena in Trotwood, Ohio in May 2017.

[46] In February 2023, it was announced that the Gazette would reduce "the number of printed editions each week while expanding local news coverage" on their website due to inflationary costs.