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New home, grant for Aviation Heritage Foundation

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 Categories: Aviaton heritage
SWilliams13
The nonprofit Aviation Heritage Foundation Inc. in Dayton, Ohio, is getting a new home at 26 S. Williams St. under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service. The park service restored the exterior of the circa 1895, Queen Anne style house and upgraded the interior for office space. AHF officials say the house now looks as it did when Wilbur and Orville Wright occupied the Wright Cycle Co. shop at 22 S. Williams, on the north side of the house. On the south side stands another Wright-era house that holds the park service's offices for the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.

AHF has been sharing office space with the park service. Now its small staff will have its own quarters. The house also adds another element to the Wright-Dunbar Neighborhood where the Wrights lived and invented the airplane at the turn of the 20th century.

AHF and national park officials plan to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the house at 2 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5 — the day aviation groups here will observe the 103rd anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flights in Kitty Hawk, N.C. (The actual first-flight date was Dec. 17, 1903.)

AHF also plans to announce the receipt of a $300,000 grant by the Mathile Family Foundation. The grant will help fund AHF's operating budget.

Formed in 2004, AHF is the congressionally chartered management group for the eight-county National Aviation Heritage Area which surrounds Dayton.
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