On the Aviation Trail in the Wright Brothers' West Side Neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio

Abstract

The West Side Dayton neighborhood where Wilbur and Orville Wright lived, worked and invented the airplane includes five historic buildings or building sites, all within a block or two of each other, that represent the five major periods in the brothers' lives. This paper tells the story of the five sites at three different periods in time: 1) when they were occupied by the Wrights during the turn of the last century, 2) when they were discovered by Aviation Trail in 1981 and 3) today, in 2001. The stories of the earliest period show the historical significance of each of the sites. The 1981 stories tell what happened to each site and the surrounding neighborhood between the time of the Wrights' era and the year they were discovered by Aviation Trail. The 2001 stories tell what has happened to the sites and the neighborhood during the 20 years since they were found by Aviation Trail. Paper presented in the symposium "Following the Footsteps of the Wright Brothers: Their Sites and Stories", at Wright State University, Dayton, OH, 28 September 2001.