The Wright Company was the commercial aviation business venture of the Wright Brothers, established by them on November 22, 1909, in conjunction with several prominent industrialists from New York and Detroit with the intention of capitalizing on their invention of the practical airplane. The company maintained its headquarters office in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and built its factory in

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

History

The two buildings designed by Dayton architect William Earl Russ and built by Rouzer Construction for the Wright Company in Dayton in 1910 and 1911 were the first in the United States constructed specifically for an airplane factory and were included within the boundary of

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio that commemorates three important historical figures— Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar—and the ...

in 2009. The Wright Company concentrated its efforts on protecting the company's

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

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. Wilbur Wright died in 1912, and on October 15, 1915, Orville Wright sold the company, which in 1916 merged with the Glenn L. Martin Company to form the

Wright-Martin Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation was a short-lived aircraft manufacturing business venture between the Wright Company (after Orville Wright sold the Wright Company and divested himself from it) and Glenn L. Martin. History Company official ...

Company. Orville Wright, who had purchased 97% of the outstanding company stock in 1914 as he prepared to leave the business world, estimated that the Wright Company built approximately 120 airplanes across all of its different models between 1910 and 1915. Many of the papers of the Wright Company are now in the collection of the

Museum of Flight The Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seattle.< ...

in Seattle, while others are held by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

in Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress also holds the papers of

Grover Loening Grover Cleveland Loening (September 12, 1888 – February 29, 1976) was an American aircraft manufacturer. Biography Loening was born in Bremen, in what was then Imperial Germany, on September 12, 1888, while his American-born father was station ...

, the second Wright Company factory manager, while the papers of

Frank Henry Russell Frank Henry Russell (July 17, 1878 – August 4, 1947) was an American aviation pioneer and the first General Manager of the Wright Brothers Company at Dayton, Ohio. He went on to co-found the Burgess Company and the Manufacturers Aircraft Ass ...

, the first plant manager, are at the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center.

Products

Aircraft

Wright Model H quarter view on ground Simms Station Dayton OH 1914 AS-ID10484

Engines

Wright Vertical 4 The Wright Vertical 4 was an American aircraft engine built by the Wright brothers in the very early years of powered flight. It was a liquid-cooled piston engine with four inline cylinders, mounted vertically. (Earlier Wright engines were mou ...

References

Notes

External links

{{Wright aircraft Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States Wright brothers . Defunct aircraft engine manufacturers of the United States Defunct companies based in Dayton, Ohio Manufacturing companies based in Ohio American companies established in 1918 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1918 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1926 1909 establishments in New York (state) 1909 establishments in Ohio 1916 disestablishments in New York (state) 1910s disestablishments in Ohio Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City