I’ve written a couple of articles and recorded a video about the Wright Brothers including where in Dayton they lived and where they had their print and bike shops.
Sadly there are very few locations that still stand in their original location. But there is another prominent Wright site still surviving in Dayton that comes into play after they achieved powered flight and became famous.
This is the Wright Company Factory, where a pair of hangar buildings with national aviation significance still stand but have recently suffered major damage which has put a proposed redevelopment into question.
History of the Wright Company
The venture was founded in 1909 by the Wright Brothers along with a group of “prominent industrialists from New York and Detroit with the intention of capitalizing on their invention of the practical airplane.”
Orville and Wilbur had achieved fame and wealth after completing their first flight in 1903, gradually honing their invention at Huffman Prairie Field in 1904-05, and putting on successful flying demonstrations in the US and Europe after that.
Manufacturing airplanes was their next big venture. And they also hoped that “the formation of the new company would remove the burden of business affairs from their shoulders, freeing them to return to research.” (Crouch 411)
The Wright Company originally leased space from the Speedwell Motor Car Company in the Edgemont neighborhood just south of Miami Chapel Road at 390 Essex Ave (alternatively listed as 1420 Wisconsin Blvd).
Official operations there began in early 1910, and “woodwork, wings, radiators, and all other parts were made there, except the engines.” (Charlie Taylor, the longtime mechanic for the Wright Brothers, built and tested the engines at the West Third St bike shop.)
At first the work “was all hand done by five workers.” Wilbur and Orville remained heavily involved, and one worker, John W. Aulman, recalled them being “always helpful, but very particular and inspected very closely all the work, which had to be passed by one of them personally.” Aulman also noted that “they were very safety minded.”
After the airplanes were built at the factory, they were taken to Huffman Prairie to be tested. (Fisk and Todd) Many of the planes produced would be used for flying demonstrations, while others were offered for sale.
The hangar buildings were erected by architect William Earl Russ and built by Rouzer Construction in 1910 and 1911. It was the first factory purpose-built to manufacture airplanes.
The Wright Company “concentrated its efforts on protecting the company’s patent rights rather than on developing new aircraft or aircraft components, believing that innovations would hurt the company’s efforts to obtain royalties from competing manufacturers or patent infringers”
Author Tom Crouch explains that “the brothers had spent their earlier years watching their father settle his church-related problems in one courtroom after another. Wilbur had helped Milton prepare legal briefs and had called for a mock family court to resolve his disputes with Orville. Neither doubted that the courts existed to defend the virtuous.”
In particular the brothers had disputes with fellow aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss over the use of their patented flight control method, who “ignored their warnings (and) rather than negotiating for the use of their patents, he had forged ahead–winning prize money, charging admission fees for flying exhibitions, and selling airplanes. They were determined to put a stop to it.” (Crouch 402)
Their legal efforts against Curtiss were successful, but the patent suits “absolutely consumed Wilbur and Orville’s time and energy during the period 1910-1912” (Crouch 417)
Wilbur’s death on May 30, 1912 at the age of 45 put an end to the brothers’ shared ambitions. Orville assumed the role of company president reluctantly. He detested management to such a degree that “the thought of attending a board meeting, let alone presiding at one, was abhorrent to him.” (Crouch 455)
In October of 1915, Orville sold the company to a group of financiers. Orville later estimated that the Wright Company built approximately 120 airplanes across all of its different models between 1910 and 1915. The majority of these were the Wright Model B.
In 1916 the company merged with the Glenn L. Martin Company to create the Wright-Martin Company. By 1918 that company operated out of a factory in Long Island City, New York.
But Martin resigned soon after, and the company was renamed Wright Aeronautical which relocated to Paterson, New Jersey and pivoted to manufacturing Wright Engines which were used by prominent aviators including Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.
In 1929 that company would merge the company of Glenn Curtiss, the Wright Brothers old patent suit adversary, to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
What’s the Difference Between the Wright Company and the Dayton Wright Company?
A potential point of confusion is that another company with a similar name, the Dayton Wright Company, also occupied the same Dayton factory but was a separate corporate entity rather than a continuation of the Wright Brothers’ firm.
Dayton Wright was founded in 1917 by other prominent industrialists including Edward Deeds and Charles Kettering of Delco and National Cash Register (NCR) fame. Orville did work as a consultant and allowed the Wright name to be used, but there was no further association with the brothers (Wilbur of course had died by this time.)
Dayton Wright occupied the former Wright Company Buildings and also had plants in Moraine and Miamisburg. The company was acquired by General Motors in 1923.
Current State and Future Redevelopment Plans for Wright Company Factory
Afterward, the Wright Company Factory buildings were owned by GM and grew into a sprawling complex housing its Inland Division, later known as Delphi, which closed in 2008. The rest of the plant was demolished but the historic structures remain, but they caught fire in 2023 and suffered significant damage. There are plans to redevelop the Wright Factory buildings and turn them into a museum as part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park, but the fire certainly complicated efforts.
At work inside the factory, 1911
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