Ohio Route 844: Beavercreek to Fairborn

Drive America’s Highways for approximately 2 miles north along Ohio Route 844 from Beavercreek to Fairborn, Ohio, as we follow one of the Dayton region’s shortest state highways from Interstate 675 toward Wright State University and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Despite its compact length, OH-844 feels more like a purpose-built urban freeway connector than a typical state route, carrying us almost entirely through the institutional landscape created by the university and the neighboring Air Force installation.

We begin in Beavercreek at Interstate 675, where northbound traffic leaves the Dayton-area beltway and joins OH-844 near North Fairfield Road. Almost immediately, the character of the drive changes. The shopping centers, businesses, and suburban development clustered around I-675 begin to fall behind as the highway turns northeast toward the large campuses that dominate this part of Greene County. OH-844 passes beneath North Fairfield Road and settles into its role as a controlled-access freeway, with broad rights-of-way, ramps, and wooded margins separating us from the surrounding streets.

A short distance later, we approach the partial interchange with Colonel Glenn Highway. Colonel Glenn is one of the principal east-west roads serving this part of Beavercreek and Fairborn, and it also forms the southern edge of Wright State University. From here, OH-844 runs along the southeastern and eastern sides of the university campus. Although the freeway keeps us separated from the buildings themselves, Wright State occupies much of the landscape immediately to our west, making the highway an important access route for students, employees, visitors, and traffic moving between the campus and the regional interstate network. Wright State’s location is closely tied to the aviation and military complex around it, and this short section of highway places us directly within that relationship.

Continuing north, OH-844 curves around the eastern side of the campus and reaches the University Boulevard interchange. The surroundings remain unusually open for a freeway so close to a major metropolitan area. Rather than passing rows of businesses or residential subdivisions, we travel between university grounds, government property, access roads, and patches of woodland. That gives the drive a distinct character: we are still firmly inside the Dayton urban area, but the road feels buffered from the city around it. University Boulevard provides another direct connection into Wright State before OH-844 begins bending northwest toward Fairborn and the edge of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

As we approach Ohio Route 444, the influence of Wright-Patterson becomes even more apparent. OH-844 crosses over SR 444 and connects with the highway at an interchange just south of the route’s northern terminus. SR 444 is an important local corridor through Fairborn and around Wright-Patterson, while OH-844 continues only a short distance beyond our drive toward the Air Force base entrance. Our video ends at the OH-444 connection, completing approximately 2 miles of the highway rather than continuing to the actual northern end of SR 844 at the base. The distinction is small in mileage but important geographically: OH-844 itself is approximately 2.4 miles long and continues beyond the point where we leave it.

The highway also carries a memorial name with a direct connection to the community around us. Ohio law designated the corridor McClernon-Skyway Memorial Drive in 1989, when the road was still numbered State Route 444A. It honors Brigadier General Glen J. McClernon, whose military career included service in the Army Air Corps during World War II and later command assignments in the Dayton area. The original SR 444A designation was eventually replaced by SR 844 during the 1990s, but the memorial identity remained attached to the corridor.

What makes Ohio Route 844 memorable is not its length but its purpose. In only a couple of miles, we move from one of the Dayton region’s major interstate highways into a landscape shaped by higher education, aviation, military history, and generations of aerospace research. There are no long rural vistas or small towns along this drive, and barely enough mileage for the route to establish a personality before it ends. Yet OH-844 serves as a compact bridge between Interstate 675, Wright State University, Fairborn, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — a short freeway whose surroundings tell a much larger story about the eastern edge of the Dayton metropolitan area.

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