Wright Cycle Shop

• The Wright Cycle Company occupied five different locations in Dayton. The building we visited is part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. Of the five locations, it is the only one that is on its original foundation and at its original site. The Wrights worked here from 1895 to 1897:
  

  

  Their bicycle business was downstairs and, above it, their printing business. After the Wright brothers moved out, the building was lived in by other families. The National Park Service has restored the building to its earlier appearance; the interior, however, contains mainly displays on bicycles of the 1890s:
  

  

  Next door, in the Dayton Aviation Heritage NHP (pictured on our Ohio homepage), we viewed a splendid film on the Wright brothers’ research into flight called, “On Great White Wings.” We had never before seen this particular 30 minute movie by Aperture Films, released in 2008. It is excellent! That this pair of self-taught mechanics could beat the world’s best minds at something so widely pursued, namely, the ability to fly, is just plain amazing. Their story should be an inspiration to anyone seeking to “do the impossible.”