The crowning glory of Dayton technology was the Wright Brothers' airplane, but the city's stature as an industrial capital was due to the mass production of another, far less glamorous local invention: the cash register, originated by two well-known Dayton restauranteurs, brothers John and James Ritty. In the early 1870's, James became concerned because, although his cafe was frequently full of patrons, he seemed to be losing money. He suspected his cashiers were dipping into the till, but short of catching them red-handed, he had no way to prove it.

Crossing the Atlantic on a trip to Europe, Ritty's love of machinery drew him to the ship's engine room, where an idea came to him as he stood watching the automatic mechanism that counted the revolutions of the ship's propeller. "If the movements of a ship's propeller can be recorded," Ritty is said to have declared, "there is no reason why the movement of sales in a store cannot be recorded." And so the cash register was born. It was named, appropriately enough, "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier."