At the beginning of the 20th century, Dayton was a bustling town with seven general stores, three blacksmiths, at least three doctors, the Waverly Hotel near the center of downtown, several private inns, and even a lamplighter said to have walked the streets each evening at sunset. Downtown endured two major fires, in 1903 and 1911, and each time buildings were reconstructed or replaced by newer architecture. From the 1890s to the 1930s, Dayton supported a wide range of manufacturing firms, merchants, and druggists, including carriage works, buggy making, harness production, a hatchery, banks, printers, cigar manufacturing, general stores, a bakery, a livery stable, and other trades. A major part of the town's commercial life was the Ruebush-Kieffer Co., established in Singers Glen shortly after the Civil War as the Patent Note Co. by Aldine S. Kieffer and Ephraim Ruebush. Because of growth and shipping difficulties in its remote location, the firm bought land in Dayton in 1878 and soon moved into a new frame building on Main Street. Its name and ownership changed several times, but Ruebush-Kieffer became the best-known title. Soon after moving to Dayton, the company was producing thousands of shaped-note music books, and its monthly periodical, The Musical Million, quickly succeeded and was mailed in large numbers into the South and into states west of Virginia. In 1895, the Chesapeake Western Railway completed tracks through Dayton to Bridgewater, giving the company easier access to paper and ink and freight service for shipping books instead of hauling them by wagon into Harrisonburg. In 1906, the company built a large three-story building on College Street and soon became the largest music publisher in Virginia. Shaped-note music declined shortly before World War I as the round-note system replaced it. Beginning about 1909, several related companies published from the Ruebush-Kieffer facilities, and by the late 1930s all except Shenandoah Press had ceased publication. Shenandoah Press continued under James L. Ruebush until the late 1980s, was later sold outside the family, and closed in early 2009, ending a 131-year printing tradition in Dayton.