It's the last remaining piece of prairie in the area. The reason it was never developed is that it's in the flood plain of the appropriately named Mad River and can sometimes be a bit swampy. The Wrights didn't have problems with water but there were so many holes it was like a prairie dog village. The man who owned the field allowed them to use it for flying at no cost as long as they moved his cows and horses out of the way.
A monument to Wilbur and Orville is on top of a bluff overlooking Huffman Prairie but the field isn't visible in the summer when trees block the view.
What is clearly visible from the top of the bluff is the AFB with its runways. It stretches off to the east of Dayton so there are no big buildings in sight.
After an underwhelming lunch at a Chinese buffet (which is still causing Jim problems more than 24 hours later), we returned to the Air Force Museum to finish seeing the WWII exhibit and the outdoor planes.
The outdoor exhibit has some rather funny looking planes. These two remind me of cartoon characters with their bulbous noses. A storm was blowing towards us so we didn't spend as much time looking at these as I would have liked. We did manage to get into the museum before the rain let loose.
I'm not going to overwhelm you with more plane photos but there are three worth adding. The "Strawberry Bitch" (above) is a good example of the creative names the crews gave their planes.
An OA-10 Catalina, a crazy looking plane with another catchy name...SNAFU Snatchers.
We finally got through with the museum 15 minutes before it closed. Once again we both were overwhelmed with the amount of information but we thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless.
This morning I called the base's expert on its buildings to find out if the one I was born in still exists. It does and here it is.
Built in 1942, Patterson Field Annex was the base hospital during the war and probably for many years thereafter until the new hospital took its place. It is now used for the offices of the base chaplain and Air Force Marathon among other things. I was born here in the middle of the night....my father dropped my mother off and went home (11 miles away) and back to bed. That didn't set too well with my mother.
We also found the apartment building that was my first home (Nov 1944 to Sept 1945). It's still a handsome building and in surprisingly good repair considering the run-down condition of the neighborhood. During WWII there must have been quite a housing problem with the influx of military personnel. It's normal to house colonels on base so the fact that my parents lived 11 miles away is an indication the base had a housing shortage.
Two very handsome brick apartment buildings from the WWII era, not far from where we lived.
Leaving the area we turned a corner and ran right into a gaggle of police stopping a car with 2 or 3 young men. We were immediately penned in by a cameraman's vehicle and two more cops so we couldn't get away. Fortunately no one got violent and we were able to escape after about ten minutes. Most of west Dayton looks like it consisted of attractive middle-class homes at one time but they've all gone to pot now with no one keeping up either the houses or the yards. It's definitely not a good place to wander around.
Today's Wrights' sights were at the Wright Cycling Company complex which is between their 4th and 5th bicycle shop locations. More towards the edge of west Dayton, it's still not a good area but the street where the visitor center is located is nice. The neighborhood must have been a choice one when the Wrights lived there over 100 years ago; the houses are still very attractive. This is one of the five Park Service Wright Brothers facilities in the area and it focuses more on their printing and bicycle-building than on their aviation activities.
The Wrights' house was given to Henry Ford for his museum outside Detroit. A park ranger told us the next door house burned down a few years after the Wrights' house was moved so it may be a good thing it left town. The houses are only two feet apart so it's quite possible the Wrights' house would have also burned.
The banner commemorating the mega-celebration put on by the City of Dayton to honor their most famous citizens 108 years ago this week.
Tomorrow we have tickets to tour Hawthorn Hill, the estate the Wrights built after their aviation career became financially successful.
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