Wilbur Wright (1867 - 1912)

English and Dutch from his father (Milton Wright) German and Swiss from his mother (Susan Catherine Koerner) It is said that his grandmother (Milton's mother) is a descendant of the Vanderbilt family.

Wibur was born Near Millville, Indiana in 1867. As his father was a Bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, the family moved a lot including spending time in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1878-1881), Richmond, Indiana (1881-1884), and eventually settled in Dayton, Ohio in 1884.

Wilbur was said to be a bright young student and did graduate from a public high school nut never received his diploma due to moving so frequently. He originally had planned to attend Yale University, but suffered an injury in winter 1885 that caused him to go into a depression and bail on his plans for college to stay home, read, and care for his mother who died of tuberculosis in 1889.

Not much is said about Wilbur's religious beliefs, but it is known that their father was a Bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Orville was named after clergyman "Willbur Fisk", and he never worked on Sundays, used tobacco or drank alcohol (similar to the beliefs of his father).

In 1889, the bothers opened a writing business and began a weekly newspaper by the name of “West Side News”. Their next venture began in 1892, when the brothers opened a bike repair and sales shop called “the Wright Cycle Exchange” which spurred due to the national bicycle craze. IN 1892 they began manufacturing their own bikes and changed the name of the shop to the “Wright Cycle Company. This business gave the two the monetary funds to start their flight research. In 1899 the brothers began testing out wing warping, by building and flying a biplane kite which would be their start towards the first successful flight. The brothers then moved to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to further their flight studies and theories and begin their first test flights. Once in Kitty Hawk the brothers worked on gliders using other known facts at the time to improve and better their flying capabilities. Some information has led us to believe that Wilbur did all of the gliding until 1902 as his big brother duty to protect younger brother Orville. After more testing, they built their third full scale glider that ran perfectly during test flights at Kill Devil Hills in Sept 1902. In the Winter of 1902, they built a wind tunnel, a gasoline engine powerful and light enough to propel a plane, airplane propellers, and a powered aircraft. With all of this ready, they headed back to Kill Devil Hills to assemble and test their powered flying machine for 7 weeks in September 1903. It was on December 17 1903 that Orville made the first successful flight flying a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. The brothers then took turns trying to beat each others record for a total of 4 flights that day. 1st flight Orville: 120 feet, 12 seconds 2nd flight Wilbur: 175 feet, 12 seconds 3rd flight Orville: 200 feet, 15 seconds 4th flight Wilbur: 825 feet, 59 seconds