National Parks:
Wright Brothers National Memorial

Manteo, North Carolina -- The morning of December 17, 1903 was bitterly cold and windy as Wilbur and Orville Wright prepared their Flyer, a bi-plane design with a wingspan of 40 feet and 4 inches, powered by a four cylinders, aluminum block, 12 horsepower gasoline engine with two eight and a half-foot propellers. With the help of four local men and a sixteen-year old boy, they moved the Flyer into position. At 10:35 am, Orville assumed the prone position in the U-shaped hip cradle on the lower wing of the Flyer. With a start of the engine and release of aircraft, the machine began to roll slowly down a monorail into the 27 mph wind. After a 40 foot run down the rail the machine lifted into the air and climbed to a height of 10 feet. It darted erratically up and down several times and swooped to the ground 120 feet from the take off point. It was the world's first powered flight.

In December 2003, the world celebrated the centennial of the December 17, 1903 first powered flight achieved by the Wright brothers on the sand flats of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, now the site of Wright Brothers National Memorial. The Wright brothers' success of the first powered flight is one of our country's greatest engineering and scientific achievements. It is the story that goes directly to the core of what we hold dear as Americans, the freedom to pursue a dream to reality and ultimately change the world.

Authorized by Congress on March 2, 1927 and established in 1928, the 425-acre Wright Brothers National Memorial on the Outer Banks of North Carolina commemorates the achievements of Wilbur and Orville Wright. A commemorative boulder, which marked the liftoff point of the first powered flight, was laid in 1928. Orville Wright attended the dedication, as well as his guest, Amelia Earhart. The Wright Monument, atop the Big Kill Devil Hill, is 61 feet high and sits on a foundation shaped like a five-pointed star; the same shape as the base of the Statue of Liberty. The 61 ft Wright Monument sits atop the Big Kill Devil Hill, a sand dune which was used by the Wright brothers for over 1,000 glider flights. The park’s visitor center was recently designated a National Historic Landmark due to its modernist design and significance to the National Park Service Mission 66 program.

DID YOU KNOW

• There were actually four Wright brothers - Ruchlin, Loren, Wilbur, and Orville. There was also a sister - Katharine.
• The Big Kill Devil Hill actually moved 450 feet to the southwest during the 25 years from the Wrights' first flight in 1903 until 1928, when the park was established.
• The Wright Monument is the largest monument in this country built to a living person. Orville Wright attended the Monument dedication in1932.
• The Wrights never patented their 1903 Wright Flyer. Their patent was based on the control system of their 1902 glider.
• The Wrights first became interested in flight as children, when Wilbur was eleven years old and Orville seven years old, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when their father gave them a small flying toy.
• Famous African American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar was childhood friend of the Wrights. They published some of his early works in their Dayton newspaper "The West Side News". The Paul Lawrence Dunbar Home is a partner park of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.

Source: National Park Service