After finishing my self guided tour of the Visitor Center, a park ranger then took me next door to the Wright Cycle Company. The bicycle business of the Wright brothers, the Wright Cycle Company occupied five different locations in Dayton, Ohio. Orville and Wilbur Wright began their bicycle repair business in 1892, and soon added rentals and sales. In 1896 they began manufacturing and selling bicycles of their own design, the Van Cleve and St. Claire, named after their ancestors. The Wrights used the profits from the Wright Cycle Company to finance their aviation experiments.This small shop has more great exhibits. I loved this advertisement showing the names of the bikes and the prices they charge. Definitely not cheap!
I want to take a moment to acknowledge my wonderful ranger at the Wright Cycle company, Karen Rosga.I visit a lot of National Parks and I love it when the rangers who work there have a genuine love of their park and are passionate about sharing that with visitors. Karen has such an appreciation for history and the Dayton Aviation area and she walked me through the building and gave me some great insight and learnings that I really appreciated. I was really impressed so thanks Karen!The Dayton Aviation park is a fairly new park and a lot of the Wright buildings and memorabilia had already been snatched up by the time it was established. This area of Dayton fell into disrepair over the years and when it was discovered (by happenstance) that this was the original building where the Wrights has operated, it helped contribute to the resurgence of West Dayton. Behind the parking lot is a fenced off area where their boyhood home once stood (now with just a porch replica). The home has since been relocated to Michigan by Henry Ford. However, a local contractor built a private home that is an exact exterior replica of the house next door.
My last stop in Dayton was the Paul Laurence Dunbar house. Since I’d already learned so much about him at the Visitor Center I decided just to stop long enough to take a picture.
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