Access granted: Historic investments and strong partnerships in Dayton

Historic investments and strong partnerships in the rural city of Dayton deliver the future via high-speed internet for all.

By Allyson Meyer

In the 1980s and ’90s, the City of Dayton orchestrated a bold $3 million historic preservation initiative, restoring its 1881 train depot (the oldest in the state) and its 1887 courthouse (also Washington’s oldest) and refurbishing its Main Street. These investments culminated in the creation of the three Historic Districts—two residential and a downtown Dayton district with 117 buildings (15 built before 1900) that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After working to preserve its agrarian past, there are now clear signs that the city is embracing its future. On 11,000 acres of wheat fields northeast of town, 87 towering turbines at Puget Sound Energy’s Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility have been spinning since 2005, annually producing 404,000 megawatt hours of electricity—enough to power 35,000 homes. Three other wind farms are now located in Columbia County.

By the end of September, when technicians will have finished stringing 231,000 feet—nearly 44 miles—of fiber- optic cable from existing power poles, the Dayton Community Broadband Project will begin delivering another commodity that is just as critical as electricity to 1,139 households and 140 businesses throughout the city: blazing fast internet connectivity.

“What we currently have offered here is considered very slow and inadequate by both state and federal standards,” says Jennie Dickinson, executive director of the Port of Columbia. “The new service will all be hardwired—a fiber cable directly to each home and business.”

Unlike the City of Anacortes, which in 2019 pioneered the state’s first municipal broadband company, Dayton won’t be an internet service provider.

“The goal is to build a tree trunk of broadband through our community and then any internet provider can branch off of that,” explains Mayor Zac Weatherford. “I’m not super techy. I don’t quite understand it—the data coming in, going out, and all of that. I’m more of, when I click on it, I want it to work, and I want it to be at a fair price. I think this project is going to open the doors to that.”

Especially since the pandemic made working from home the new normal, internet connectivity has become a matter of equity, he shared, noting that bringing broadband access to homes and businesses is every bit as essential as delivering water and electricity.

“I just think it’s really important that everybody has [access to] high-speed internet,” adds Weatherford. “This project opens up options for anybody living in our community to be able to get broadband services.”

The Dayton Community Broadband Project also ticks all the boxes in a statewide Digital Equity Plan overseen by the Washington State Broadband Office, which the Legislature established in 2019 to create universal, reliable, and affordable high-speed broadband, bridging a digital divide that long has existed between the state’s urban and rural areas. It all started in July 2021, with a $2 million Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) grant, which the city matched with $335,000 from its share of federal COVID relief funds.

“We could not have raised the necessary local match without the City of Dayton’s assistance. It was critical to our success,” says Dickinson. “We also appreciate the support of the City of Dayton’s Council and the Public Works Department as we work through the construction. This is a huge project for our small town.”

Like the distinctive dual-tone digital handshake that happened in the days of dial-up internet, the kudos and cooperation go both ways.

“This is a Port project we helped with. We partnered with them, and I think they deserve the credit,” Weatherford says. “What makes these small rural communities run is having good relationships and working together as a team to do what’s best for everybody.”

For more information: daytonwa.com