Brothers, Bikes, Birds & Biplanes
It seemed like a simple idea. Get stamps in my dad’s Passport to your National Parks book to honor him. It just made sense to drop into the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park while visiting old friends in Ohio. I had been to the Wright Brothers Cycle shop in Carillon Park as a teenager when I lived in Dayton & thought I knew where I was going. Except, it’s actually 6 separate locations in the city, each with different hours and, of course, its own unique stamp.
From what I remember, Carillon Park had a huge tower with bells that played every hour & a bunch of historic buildings you could walk through. Some were only open certain hours & some you had to pay to get into, so it made perfect sense to me that different buildings would have different hours. I figured I could go to the cycle shop at 9am, then look at the other building while I waited for the Wright Brothers National Museum to open at noon. I arrived just after 9am & found the entire park fenced off, closed until noon that day.
Crows, Chaos in flight
According to google, the visitors center, located downtown, also opened at 9am. I left my passport book in the car. Judging from the lack of cars in the parking lot, I wasn't confident this building would be open either. But the door opened & I was greeted by two people in iconic National Park ranger uniforms. They told me I could visit this historic building, which included several smaller museums and then one of them could take me to the cycle shop. The brothers opened their first business, a print shop in a rented space on the second floor of this building. It was cool to see the actual room where the Wright Brother had a printing press for local publications and business documents.
I was so surprised when they took me to the cycle shop, not in Carillon Park, but to the building next door. Their bicycle business needed a first-floor store front, so they opened that in building next door. Surprising that both buildings were still intact, a century later in the 1990’s when historically minded people decided it was time to open a museum in town dedicated to them.
Bikers on city bike path
I decided to eat lunch at the café in Carillon Historical Park. I was the very first visitor at noon on Sunday and asked when the café opened. He said, "on Tuesday." I needed to leave by 2pm to get to my friend’s senior swim meet. Sooo now off to learn history on an empty stomach in the building I came to see. The "Wright Brothers National Museum" where the actual, not replica, 1905 Wright Flyer III the only airplane designated as a National Historic Landmark was on display. Orville Wright himself oversaw the installation of the plane in the museum in the late 1940's, just before his death. The experience begins with an exact replica of their final bike shop location, where they did most of the work on their airplanes. The actual cycle shop was sold to Henry Ford in 1938. Dismantled and reconstructed in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit, Michigan.
THIS is the bike shop I remember visiting in my teens. It looked & felt familiar, but I don't remember seeing the plane. I'm sure I did. It’s been there since the 1940’s. Maybe it's because riding bikes was such an important part of my childhood. We were the generation told to “go play outside & don't come back till the streetlights come on.” We would ride our bikes around the neighborhood like we owned the place. My dad also loved riding & we would go on long bike rides with him. We rode our bikes to the farmers market with our parents. Also, my dad & brother are aviation geeks. We’ve been to MANY air shows and aviation museums. It's interesting to me that all the airplanes have blended together, but that bike shop is such a strong memory.
Learned a bunch of interesting facts that day, but the most important lesson was how much fun it is to be the only person in a museum. As an introvert, I'm usually not the first person to start a conversation. I don’t like to ask "dumb" questions in front of others. I learned those who work in museums know a bunch of cool stuff they don’t put on the wall. I learned that by not being afraid to ask questions, share my own thoughts and really listen, the museum experience can be much more entertaining.
I learned how important the entire Wright family was to the brother’s success. Profits from the bike shop funded all the costs involved in building & testing their planes. Their sister ran the bike business while they were building, testing & flying their aircraft. The park ranger told me about a pilot training school the Wrights started that even trained female pilots. A volunteer shared that his wife was retired teacher & they believed Wilber Wright may have been on the autism spectrum.
In addition to all the other extensive research, Wilber spent hours & hours watching birds in flight, filling journals with sketches & notes. Much of the Wright Brothers innovations in wing design, propeller design and flight control came directly from watching how birds fly. Their father was an avid reader and bird watcher. Biographers say that Wilber devoured the books in his home, including his father's bird books. It's not a stretch to say that humans owe our ability to build, design & fly aircraft to a father who inspired the love of learning, reading and observing nature in his children. Much like I owe my love of learning, history, nature & photography to my father. I haven’t invented anything that will change the course of human history yet, but I guess there’s still time.
