place

Wright Cycle Company

Air transportation on the National Register of Historic PlacesCycle manufacturers of the United StatesCycling museums and halls of fameDayton Aviation Heritage National Historical ParkHistory museums in Ohio
History of Dayton, OhioIndustrial buildings completed in 1895Museums in Dayton, OhioNational Aviation Heritage AreaNational Historic Landmarks in OhioNational Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, OhioRetail buildings in OhioThe Henry FordTransportation museums in OhioUse mdy dates from August 2023Wright brothers
Wright Cycle Company Offices
Wright Cycle Company Offices

The bicycle business of the Wright brothers, the Wright Cycle Company (originally the Wright Cycle Exchange) successively occupied six different locations in Dayton, Ohio. Orville and Wilbur Wright began their bicycle repair, rental and sales business in 1892, while continuing to operate a print shop (they ended their local newspaper business in 1890). These shops helped them fund their aeronautical studies. In 1896, they began manufacturing and selling bicycles of their own design, the Van Cleve, named after an early settler of Dayton, and the St. Clair, named after a territorial governor. They invented the self-oiling hub and devised the innovation of machining the crankarm and pedal on the left side with left-hand threads to prevent the pedal from coming unscrewed while cycling. The brick building at 22 South Williams St., where the Wrights worked from 1895 to 1897, is the only extant building on its original foundation and in its original location that housed a Wright bicycle shop. They ran their printing shop on the second-floor. The 22 South Williams Street building is part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park and the National Aviation Heritage Area.The Wrights used the profits from the Wright Cycle Company to finance their aviation experiments. In 1901, they fitted a third bicycle wheel horizontally above the front wheel of one of their St. Clair bicycles and used the apparatus as a test platform to study airfoil design. They built a six-foot wind tunnel on the second floor of their bicycle shop at 1127 West Third St., the last location of their bicycle business, and from October to December they conducted pioneering tests in the tunnel of over 200 shapes of scale-model wings.In that same building, they designed and constructed their gliders and first airplane, the Wright Flyer, which cost under $1,000 to build. The shop closed in 1909 and they started their aviation company. In 1937, with Orville's cooperation, the building at 1127 West Third St. was moved to Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, by Henry Ford.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Wright Cycle Company (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Wright Cycle Company
South Williamson Street, Dayton

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Wright Cycle CompanyContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 39.75365 ° E -84.211991666667 °
placeShow on map

Address

South Williamson Street

South Williamson Street
45402 Dayton
Ohio, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Wright Cycle Company Offices
Wright Cycle Company Offices
Share experience

Nearby Places

Central Avenue Historic District (Dayton, Ohio)
Central Avenue Historic District (Dayton, Ohio)

The Central Avenue Historic District is a small segment of the larger Grafton Hill neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio, United States. Composed of just two blocks near the border between Grafton Hill and Dayton View, the historic district comprises a cohesive collection of houses dating primarily from the turn of the 20th century, and it has been named a historic site. Central Avenue is a prominent example of Dayton's earliest suburbanizing trends, having been built for people who were leaving the original boundaries of the city in and around what is now downtown, along the Great Miami River. At this time, around the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Dayton was undergoing rapid increases in population and commerce, due to unprecedented industrial growth. As a result, those who were leaving the older parts of the city and moving to Central Avenue were the nouveau riche, who were becoming rich for the first time as a result of wise investment in the city's booming industries.The historic district comprises nineteen buildings: eighteen contributing and one non-contributing. Primarily built as single-family houses, the buildings in the district lie along both sides of Central Avenue both north and south of its intersection with Federal Street, but in no direction does the district extend more than one block from the Federal-Central intersection: parts of Central in these two blocks, as well as all territory to the north, east, and south, comprise Grafton Hill's historic district, and a small non-historic strip is located along Salem Avenue, separating Grafton Hill from the larger Dayton View Historic District farther west. Its identity is not always kept separate from Grafton Hill; some community events, such as walking tours, lump these two blocks of Central Avenue with the surrounding neighborhood.Central Avenue was built at the height of the Victorian era in architecture, and many of the houses display Victorian styles such as Queen Anne, although later modes such as bungalows can also be found. The district's most prominent houses, located at 240 and 338 Central, are both Queen Annes. The built environment on Central Avenue has been well preserved to the point that the neighborhood was designated a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places one week before Christmas 1982. Since that time, the neighborhood has gained further recognition via community-organized walking tours and from Preservation Dayton, which recognized two homeowners for their restoration of the house at 330 Central Avenue.