… by that coward Henry Ford.
Being beaten out by Kitty Hawk for the first ever flight is hard enough to take. But, compound that with the actions of industrialist Henry Ford (yeah, he just made cars. Cars don’t fly) and the good people of Dayton, Ohio might just want to give up.
You see, Ford started a museum in Dearborn, Michigan, (creatively called “The Henry Ford”) dedicated to the preservation of all things of historical significance; particularly those dealing with the Industrial Revolution. What does this mean in context to Dayton and the Wright Brothers? This.
One morning in the early 1930s, Ford took both the house the Wright Brothers lived in, and their bicycle shop back with him to his Dearborn museum, leaving Dayton with only a half-replica of a bicycle shop that was closed long before the Wright Brothers started building airplanes.
The Ranger in charge of this site was quite sad and apologetic, as if somehow she could have gone back in time, using her special Ranger Powers (slightly different than Power Rangers), and stopped Ford in his tracks. I do absolutely believe that Rangers are magical, but only in the sense that they really do not get enough credit for how much they enhance the National Park experience for all of us.
So, is this site still worth the look? Of course. Old Ford may have the building, but Dayton’s still got the history.