Original Site of Wright Brothers Home — Attraction in Dayton

The original house and Wright Bros cycle shop were purchased by Henry Ford for his museum. This sort of thing sounds odd today, but at the time, the people of Dayton were flattered and Orville Wright was an enthusiastic supporter of the move, as it assured their high-quality preservation.

Unfortunately for modern Dayton, that means that 7 Hawthorne Street is an empty lot with an outline of the home's foundation and a recreation of the front porch.

If you're looking for original artifacts, or for a good starting point to begin diving into the history of the Wrights, this isn't it.

However, if you're reasonably familiar with the details of the Wrights' story and know how important this little piece of land was to them, it is a must-visit site. I really enjoyed strolling around and reflecting on the mental seeds that began to grow here.

P.S. If you're looking for a great Wright Bros. book, David McCullough's is fantastic. We listened to it (read by the author) on our drive to Dayton and it was helpful...

It was a very neat experience it was a very cool thing to see the only bad thing is that the structure is no longer there but at least someone had the foresight and wherewithal and funds to take it and preserve it. It's somewhere in Michigan and belongs to the the Ford family Henry Ford bought and restored the bicycle shop in the family home of the wright brothers and it is now in a museum I would love for them to bring it back to Dayton so it could be back where it belongs so people could actually see it is a very cool thing to see the exact place where the two guys that invented the airplane sat on their back porch and hung out definitely worth...

While there's not much to see, this is such an important part of American history and can't be missed if you're in the area. This is where the Wright brothers grew up and lived their adult lives, right around the corner from (one of) their bicycle shops. The house isn't there anymore as it was moved to Greenfield Village in Detroit. The foundation is outlines instead on the ground and there are informational signs around the yard that provide some...