The Wright Brothers: A Centennial Tribute

by Dr. Bob Gardner
Department of Mathematics
Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geology
Institute of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
East Tennessee State University

NEWSPAPERS AND BICYCLES

After working for two summers at a printing business in Dayton, Orville took an interest in building his own printing press. With Wilbur's help, he constructed a press big enough and fast enough to manage the required capacity of printing a newspaper.

Orville rented a room on West Third Street and on March 1, 1889 published the first issue of the West Side News which was four pages in length. This first issue was given out for free, but soon the paper, which was published weekly, was turning a profit. After a few weeks, Wilbur joined Orville as the paper's editor. In April 1890, they reformatted the paper, started publishing it daily and renamed it The Evening Item. After about four months, the brothers stopped regular publication, but still occasionally put out papers covering local events.

The Wright Brothers' next interest started in 1892 when Orville and Wilbur each bought bicycles. This was a time when the bicycle was becoming a trend. Business was good and growing stronger and in 1895 the bothers moved into 1127 West Third Street

Wright Cycle Shop and started to build and sell bicycles of their own design. The success of the Wright Cycle Company was the primary source of financing for their experiments in flight. Also, the seasonal nature of the "sport" of bicycling afforded the brothers with long periods of time for mechanical experiments on new bicycle design... and... other types of machines.

Go to Glider Experiments section.