Dayton Lane is Hamilton's best-preserved Victorian neighborhood, a grid of streets lined with late-19th-century houses ranging from modest workers' cottages to substantial Italianate and Queen Anne mansions. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, it stands as evidence that Hamilton was once a prosperous manufacturing city whose business owners built confidently and well.
Walking the streets between Dayton Lane and Campbell Avenue gives a clear picture of how the city once lived. The houses are privately owned and occupied, but the street-facing architecture is worth a slow walk. The neighborhood runs a popular home tour each year in the spring, when interiors that are otherwise closed to the public can be seen.