Where powered flight began.
Here in West Dayton, the Wright brothers built bicycles and talked enthusiastically around the dinner table about how to develop a flying machine. In his last years, Orville still came to the neighborhood to work in his laboratory. Through these three locations, visit the family history of the Wrights from ideation of the airplane through to the world’s first pilot’s last years.
1125-1127 W. Third St.
In 1897, the Wrights moved their bicycle business from 22 South Williams Street (part of the National Park today ) just around the corner to a storefront shop at 1125-1127 W. Third Street. The original shop was moved to Greenfield Village by Henry Ford, but today you can visit interpretive panels and explore the shops and dining along W. Third Street.
7 Hawthorn St.
The Wright brothers were in their twenties when they lived here. Five adults lived in this house as Wilbur and Orville debated solutions to the flying machine around the dining room table. A reconstructed front porch now pays homage to the Victorian home, no longer standing. You can walk through the concrete foundation and take a stroll down the sidewalks of the historic neighborhood added to the National Register in 1980.
15 N. Broadway St.
It was here that Orville spent his last years. A tinkerer and inventor to the end, Orville perfected the split-wing flap and the automatic stabilizer here in his lab. In 1976, Standard Oil of Ohio knocked down the former Wright Aeronautical Laboratory to use the property, but nothing was ever built. A facade was recreated in later years and today you can visit interpretive panels describing more detail of the famous aviator’s personal lab.
