Revisions September 6, 2026
Visitors to Huffman Prairie will read in their printed brochures on the history of the field, "Wilbur and Orville Wright did not just happen to this place. William Werthner, a biology teacher at Dayton's Central High School introduced Orville to the area. He led students to Huffman's prairie to study the native plants that survived in the fence rows and along road edges. Over the years those students included both Orville and his sister Katharine.......Orv loved that class, preserving a small notebook filled with plant descriptions and meticulous drawings of wildflowers as one of his few high school keepsakes." (1)
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| "Young Orville Wright first came to this field, not to fly, but to sketch wildflowers. Orville's 9th grade science teacher, William Werthner, regularly brought Central High School students to Torrence Huffman's property to study the unusual plants found here. When the Wright brothers sought a place for their flying trials, they remembered banker Huffman's pasture...." Sign at Huffman Prairie Flying Field. (2) |
Did William Werthner ever claim he took Orville and Katharine to Huffman Prairie as students? When was this account first expressed by any historian? Is Orville's 1887 class notebook filled with meticulous drawings of prairie plants? Did Orville write of a field trip to Huffman Prairie during his school years? This post will examine those questions. In the overall history of the Wright Brother's accomplishments, does it matter whether Orville had visited Huffman Prairie prior to 1904? No, it doesn't. But if upon examining the evidence, if it becomes clear the account is not supported by Orville's class notebook, or any other account by William Werthner, than shouldn't we as historians want to Get the Story Wright?
Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Video by Author.
What is the primary source for the account of William Werthner taking his botany students to Huffman Prairie in the 1880's? The claim was never expressed by William Werthner. In all his recollections of Orville and Katharine, he never mentioned taking either of them as students to Huffman Prairie. Orville, in his account of how he and Wilbur chose Huffman Prairie as the grounds for their experimentation, never mentioned he had visited the area as a student under Werthner. Katharine made no mention of it in any of her hundreds of letters. Their father Milton didn't record this field trip by his children in any of his diary entries or letters, or recollections provided for newspaper articles. So when and where did the account originate?
The primary source attributed to Orville Wright visiting Huffman Prairie
as a student at Central High School has been indicated by historians as
his 1887 Botany class notebook. This notebook has been described as
filled with drawings and notes concerning prairie plants Orville is said
to have viewed at the prairie during a class field trip to the site
arranged by his professor William Werthner. However, the actual contents
of the notebook tell a different story.
The earliest mention of Orville visiting Huffman Prairie in the 1880's appears in "The Bishop's Boys" by Tom Crouch, published in 1989. From Chapter 20, The Prairie Patch, pg 279:
"Precisely why the Wrights chose Huffman Prairie is not clear. In the mid-1830's John Leonard Riddell, foremost collector of botanical specimens in the West, had discovered three new species at the Prairie. William Werthner, the science teacher at Dayton's Central High School, led two generations of young people, including Orville and Katharine Wright, on field trips there. Orv loved the class, preserving a small notebook filled with plant descriptions and meticulous drawings of wildflowers as one of his few high school keepsakes. Perhaps it was the memory of those trips that brought the Wrights back to Huffman Prairie. Any one of a dozen fields would have done as well, but Orville knew that the Prairie had two great advantages: it lay directly on the interurban rail line and was, at the same time, relatively isolated." (3)
Sources of information for this paragraph are listed as
- William Werthner "Personal Recollections of the Wrights", Aero Club of America Bulletin (July 1912), vol I, 13
- Orville Wright botany notebook, William Werthner, "Plant Descriptions and Field Notes, Season of '87, Wright Collection, series 2, file 3, box 3, WSU.
However, these sources do not mention field trips by students to Huffman Prairie, and Orville's botany notebook does not contain numerous drawings of prairie plants, but rather various budding tree branch sketches, and descriptions of flowers such as dandelions, violets, and clover.
Werthner's article from the Aero Club of America News, July 1912, makes no mention of class field trips to Huffman Prairie. Instead, he tells of his visits to the Prairie to witness Wilbur and Orville's early experimentation eventually leading up to their amazing flights of October 1905. From "Personal Recollections of the Wrights", Werthner wrote:
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"In the Dayton high school classes of the late 1880's I had a quiet, reserved boy, faithful in his work, but not strikingly different from the rest, named Orville Wright, whom I should have forgotten among the hundreds of yearly newcomers had not his sister Kate in after years also attended our school and told me that she was the second of her family to recite in my classes. Some six or eight years afterward, as a college graduate, she made application for a vacancy in the high school faculty and received the appointment; this was followed by a renewal of acquaintance, and from time to time Miss Kate told me of Orville's doings and of his studies (together with his older brother Wilbur) in the art of human flight. I took but slight interest in the matter until one day she showed me some photographs 'the boys' had sent her from North Carolina, where on the sand dunes, near a place whose queer name has since become a household word, Kitty Hawk, they were experimenting with gliders. For several seasons these practical studies were made by the brothers at Kitty Hawk, and no one, saving a few friends, knew or cared anything about the matter.
Occasionally the sister asked me for a bit of help in translating difficult or obscure passages for her brothers in current German aeronautical publications, especially several by Lilienthal, whose spectacular death had so startled us. In turn, I learned that the brothers did not at all agree with some of the deductions of this German investigator, and I shook my head rather dubiously at the thought that a couple of apparently untrained American youths should deny the doctrines of a German scientist- but they maintained that they were right, and proceeded to make practical application of their own theories.
I grew interested in their schemes, and when they invited me to come see their experiments in flying, I was more than eager to learn how they would overcome gravity and solve the problem of the ages. That they could glide downhill like Lilienthal I knew from Miss Kate's accounts and from the photographs which one of them had taken while the other was in the air- but to put a motor in the biplane, and thus make it fly above the level ground, or turn a corner or rise and fall and balance itself in the uncertain wind- this was another matter entirely, and remained to be proved to the world of doubting Thomases.
Knowing the brother's faith in their invention, remembering the years of patient study and their recent glidings at Kitty Hawk, I tried to make myself feel that I should see the apparatus fly; but I still lacked faith of the real kind, and the stories of Daedalus and of Darius Green flitted through my mind as I first accompanied Miss Kate to the fateful Huffman's Prairie, some six miles east of the city, where the Wrights had put up a substantial shed to house their great white bird, their tools and supplies, and where they often spent the whole day when a knotty mechanical problem arose, scarcely allowing themselves the short time to eat a cold lunch taken along from home. Here, too, when there was any promise of flight, was always present the venerable, gray-haired Bishop, encouraging his boys by interest in their work and implicit faith in the outcome, and none was more heartily congratulated than he when finally crowning success was theirs.
As the inventors were still experimenters, and not demonstrators, their flights were not advertised, and strangers were never welcome; in fact sometimes Wilbur posted me at the roadway with positive instructions to see that no one entered the field with a camera, and to look closely that it was not hidden under a coat or in the pocket; for they were not willing to have the unripe results of their studies and experiments published especially through another's camera.
At times I was more than mere onlooker; I helped relay the rail, if the wind had shifted, for at this early stage the biplane was always started into the face of the wind supported buy a one-wheeled truck on a rail; at other times I helped balance the machine on its truck, while Taylor, their mechanician, and their brother Lorin started the propellers, and the inventor on the field stood by to critically watch how things went. There was nothing spectacular about these many trials, but the good humored Wilbur, after a spill out of the machine, or a break somewhere, or a stubborn motor; was always reassuring; their patient perseverance, their calm faith in ultimate success, their mutual consideration of each other, might have been considered phenomenal in any but men who were well born and well reared. These flights, or spurts at flying, they always made in turn; and after every time the two inventors, quite apart, held long and confidential consultation, with always some new gain; they were getting nearer and nearer the moment when a sustained flight would be made, for a machine that could maintain itself aloft two minutes might just as well stay there an hour, if everything were as was intended.
And so it did, one day; the few spectators were beside themselves as the great white bird, with Orville lying on the lower plane, lifted itself into the air, gave no indication of dropping, and just kept on, round and round, over the field which in the light of this phenomenal achievement of seven years ago, with propriety might now be called the 'Aviator's Field of the Cloth of Gold'. The spectators, I say, trembled with excitement; but Wilbur, self-controlled by virtue of his faith the correct theories he and Orville had worked out, looked calmly on; he saw all happen as he knew from the first it had to happen.
And on this prairie stretch, historic since those flights of 1905, the local memorial committee proposes the erection of two Greek columns to commemorate the first flight of a heavier-than-air machine. Mr. Torrence Huffman will donate several acres of land, and funds are forthcoming to finance the carrying out of the unique scheme in the near future. Nothing seems more appropriate than the placing of twin shafts on this field of triumph, marking the labors of two men so closely bound in one achievement, all these years supplementing each other more perfectly than any two coworkers known in history, of whose work no one can say: 'Here is the mark of Wilbur's hand and here of Orville's.' To speak of one is to include the other, for only when separated by the sea, Wilbur abroad and Orville at home, could one think of them as even bodily apart. Now their labors together are over, for Wilbur's fertile brain and busy hands are still as he lies 'under the sod and the dew', close by the gentle woman who gave him to the world." (4)
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A beautiful recollection of events by Werthner, but in all this, he makes no mention of bringing Orville to this prairie in 1887.
Ann Honious in "What Dreams We Have", 2003, references "The Bishop's Boys", page 279, and Orville's botany book sketches when she wrote, The Wright brothers were familiar with the acreage, for William Werthner, a science teacher at Central High School, led two generations of students to the prairie for field work. Orville and Katharine had both experienced Werthner's introduction to prairie flora and fauna. As a student, Orville filled a notebook full of observations and sketches of wildflowers from the prairie....". (5)
But Orville's botany book doesn't support this at all. There was no introduction to prairie flora and fauna, and the notebook was not filled with sketches of wildflowers from the prairie. Not only are prairies filled with flowering plants, they are also filled with many interesting grasses, of which there is no mention of such plants in the notebook.
Big Bluestem grass, restored prairie adjacent to Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Video by Author.
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| Various native prairie grasses at Huffman Prairie State Natural Landmark. Orville's notebook includes no grasses at all. A true study of a prairie would include the various grasses found there. |
Orville Wright's Botany Sketchbook has been digitized by Wright State University Special Collections and Archives, and so is conveniently available on-line at Core Scholar for examination. The book is titled "Plant Descriptions and Field Notes, Season of '87, as created by William Werthner. Werthner divided the book into various sections beginning with "Buds". In this section, the students were to sketch various tree branches in the budding stage, and write characteristics of each.(6)
Orville examined 19 different types of trees, sketching the budding branches, and making notes of each. Orville's first sketch is of a Sycamore budding branch. This is followed then by a Sassafras budding branch, Silver Poplar, Red Maple, Bass Wood, Willow, Cherry, Horse Chestnut, Ash, Silac, Hazel, Elm, Hickory, Catalpa, Blue Beech, Butternut, Buckeye, Honey Locust, and Oak budding branches. These pages of drawings precede the section titled "Trees", in which Orville describes characteristics of the various trees he had observed. Page by page, he begins with Silver Poplar, followed by Sycamore, Red Maple, Bass wood, Catalpa, Cherry, Willow, Elm, Hickory. For each, he provided a description of each, including tree height, trunk diameter, type of bark and leaves, etc. For the Sycamore, he sketched the seed.
The next section in Orville's notebook is titled "Flowers". Orville's descriptions of flowers begins with Shepherd's Purse, followed by Dandelion, Red Clover, Wild rose, Perennial, Waterleaf, Blue violet, Yarrow, and Sweet William. He provided a quick simple sketch for five of the flowers, but not in the same meticulous detail of his drawings of tree branches. The majority of the pages provided for flowers were left blank. Of these nine flowers, three would grow in a prairie, with the rest common to lawns or woodlands.
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| Examples of the variety of native prairie flowering plants that can be enjoyed at the Huffman Prairie State National Landmark. None of these flowering plants were of the varieties noted by Orville Wright in his notebook. This is a restored prairie today rather than the farmland and cattle/horse grazing area of the Wright's time at the Flying Field. However, these are the types of native flowering plants one would have expected to find blooming in remnants of the prairie in 1887. |
Wild Bergamot flowering at Huffman Prairie State Natural Landmark. Video by Author.
The next section is titled "Field Notes", with blank pages titled "Experiments", and followed by one page titled "Protection", on which Orville wrote a short note on seed protection. Under the section "Climbing Plants", Orville wrote about grape vines, poison ivy, and smilac. Under the section "Distribution of seed", Orville wrote about various tree seeds. Under the section "Spring Flowers", Orville lists names of 36 Flowers, followed by a list of trees and their heights. William Werthner did not include a section within his Season of '87 book for "Prairie Plants".
The location of the trees viewed by Orville are listed as viewed at the River Bank, the Pinnacles, and Millers Woods. Orville then wrote several pages within the section titled, "Excursion Notes". It is almost mind boggling that this notebook has been attributed to a field trip to Huffman Prairie, when there is a complete absence of any reference to visiting any prairie within this section. Here, the student was tasked to describe the specific trips made to observe the various plants described in their notebook. Within this section, Orville wrote a narrative of the field trips taken by the class, and the notes are specific. These notes describe trips to the Pinnacles, and Stillwater. Orville does not write about an excursion to Huffman Prairie. He does not mention the prairie in any way. Instead, he wrote the following:
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"We started from the Union Depot, at P.M. on Wednesday, May 18th, 1887, and arrived at the Pinacles [sic] at ____. We went to the first spring, to drink, and eat our lunch.
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As posted in The Dayton Herald, July 13, 1887. |
The first flower found was a 'golden ragwort', which was found on the way to the spring. After leaving the spring we went [past, crossed out] by the U.S. Hotel to the ravine beyond which we followed to the stone bridge. Here we sat down and rested for about an hour, then we went up the road, through a wheat field to [the, crossed out] a woods, composed mostly of beach. By the fence between the wheat field and the woods we found some parasite on the leaves of the Virginia Dandelion. The following flowers were found, Golden Ray Wort, Spring Beauty, Spider Wort, Wild Sweet William, Wild Black Berries, Wild straw Berries, Anemones, May Flowers, Virginia Dandelion Red, and White Clover, Dandelion Five finger, Jack in the pulpit, Solomon's seal, Butter Cup, Ground Ivy, Shepherds purse White and Blue violets.
The following is the measurement of trees. On Saturday June 6th, 1887, I went out Stillwater about two miles. Fire pink were abundant on the shady banks of the river. We also found Yarrow on the bank by the river in the sun, it being about the only flower found, excepting those in the shade. The following is a list of flowers found: Fire pink, Mouse-eared Chick-weed Yarrow."
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| Excursion Notes from Orville Wright's Botany book makes no mention of a class field trip to Huffman Prairie. Images courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University Libraries. |
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The field excursion to the Pinnacles makes logistical sense. The class could easily walk from Central High School located at the southwest corner of Fourth and Wilkinson streets in Dayton, two blocks south to Union Depot, then to the Pinnacles by train. By contrast, logistically, how would a field trip to a remote field 8 miles east of
Dayton be accomplished in 1887? The Dayton and Springfield Electric Railway, and the drop off Simms Station, did not exist
until February of 1900. In 1887, for a class to travel to Huffman Prairie, Werthner would have had to hire services of a driver of a large horse-drawn multi-passenger wagon to travel the dirt road 8 miles to the prairie. The trip one-way would have taken two to three hours, at roughly 3-4 miles an hour. No restroom facilities would have been available. The students upon arrival, would likely have endured chiggers, ticks, and the occasional rattle snake encounter.
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| Map engraved July 1906, surveyed 1903-1904, U.S. Geological Survey, Dayton and Springfield quadrangle railroad map. Simms station shown in yellow highlight. The Dayton and Springfield electric RR line shown extending from Dayton to Fairfield, did not exist in 1887. Map from Author's collection. |
Interview with Henry Stout, February 18, 1967. Wright Brothers- Charles Kettering Oral History University of Dayton: (7)
"....that
area out there was used as a cow pasture and it belonged to Mr.
Torrence Huffman, whose son, William P. Huffman, is the president of the
State Fidelity Federal Savings Association, and he had a herd of cattle
out there, and the Wrights approached him, asking for permission to use
that. He said it was all right for you to use it but don't harm the
cattle. But the place had the reputation of being infested with
rattlesnakes. So people didn't do too much walking around there. Whether
or not there were, I don't know for sure."
From "Discovery and Renewal on Huffman Prairie" by David Nolin, 2018, "One of the animals that once inhabited the wet portions of the original Huffman Prairie is the eastern massasauga rattlesnake. This species is a resident of fens and wet prairies in the upper Midwest of the United States and Canada. Massasaugas are shy animals that feed on small mammals, other snakes, and invertebrates. While usually less than two feet long, their presence on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has long been almost legendary. Since childhood, I have heard people say that golfers once had to push these snakes out of the way on the golf greens with their putters, or claim that the base once brought in hogs to eat the snakes. John Van Cleve had found them on the prairie in the 1830's; there is no doubt that these little rattlers were common on Huffman Prairie before widespread drainage and development destroyed the fen and wet prairie habitat...." (8)
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| "The First Airport" sign at Huffman Prairie. For Your Safety- Use insect repellent. In hot weather, this can be chigger country. Check for ticks after your walk. Photo by Author. |
The restored prairie adjacent to the Wright's Huffman Prairie Flying Field is fortunately provided with a mowed walking path through the tall prairie grasses and flowers. Students in 1887 would not have had this luxury.
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| Huffman Prairie State Natural Landmark. Photo by Author. |
Restored Prairie adjacent to Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Video by Author.
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| Eastern Garter Snake at Huffman Prairie. Photo by Author. |
Botany was a required subject for the second half of the 9th grade year at Central High School. With a 9th grade student size of roughly 100, there likely would have been two or three separate class groups for Werthner's Botany class.(9) Paul Laurence Dunbar took the 1887 Botany class but apparently was not in the same class with his friend Orville. Paul's class notebook coincidentally has also been preserved. Does he list a trip to Huffman Prairie under the section "Excursion Notes"? No, he does not. Paul describes trips to the Miami River, The Pinnacles, and the Bluffs. The following is from Dunbar's excursion notes, and his talent for the written word is already apparent. (Where I wasn't certain of the spelling of the word, I placed brackets around the word.) (10)
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| Map sketched by Dunbar of his first excursion. Perhaps the hike he took near the Miami River. Difficult to read, but possibly "Minks Woods", and "hike" indicating the trail taken through the woods. Minks were common along Wolf Creek in the late 1800's. In any case, likely a local hike Dunbar personally took within walking distance of his West Side home. Image courtesy of the Ohio History Connection. |
"April 15th I met with what seemed to be two maple trees joined together by growth from the ground. about two and one half feet from the ground they separated and each seemed a separate tree both being in flourishing conditions. (on Miami River) Met with shepherd's purse of sprout very early in the Spring.
On an excursion to the pinnacles April 16th 1887. [It is interesting this date was a Saturday. Orville's trip to the Pinnacles occurred on May 18th, a Wednesday. Central High School employed only 8 teachers. I assume a substitute teacher would have been hired to cover for Werthner on an all day excursion to the Pinnacles. This would not have been necessary for Dunbar's Saturday visit there. ]We met with about thirty different plants most of which had no fragrance at all. Spring Beauties were in great abundance, and I found one green petaled [wind] flower, a very rare specimen which was quite unceremoniously appropriated by the teacher to the cause of the Science of Botany. Over thirty different kinds of wild flowers we found on this excursion. Yellow and white being the prevalent colors, most if not all of the flowers had thick roots, in which nourishment was stored, the woods and hillsides at the Pinnacles were dotted with flowers, Everlasting Spring Beauties and others too numerous to mention. With such a magnetic blending & pretty shades, they presented an appearance at once striking and beautiful. At the edge of the precipice near the United States Hotel the scenery is mostly of the pencil of any nature- loving artist in the world, at the foot of the precipice, about fifty feet below the spectators position, two scrubby cedars struggle for existence in the well-washed clay, a little further over the peaks or Pinnacles from which the place gets its appropriate name, stand [bare] sharp and yellow, on the side of a [sheggisle] pond of clay-colored water.
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| The U.S.Hotel can be seen in this 1890 image of the Pinnacles. "At the edge of the precipice near the United States Hotel the scenery is mostly of the pencil of any nature-loving artist in the world, at the foot of the precipice, about fifty feet below the spectators position...." |
This ground which probably centuries ago was submerged, and the flood seems eager to regain her territory, as the result of this we have this space of clay, that stares so coldly [abode] yet so prettily at one, on his first visit.
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| Sign at the City of Moraine Pinnacles Historical Hiking Trail. The
interesting geological peaked features are unfortunately no longer in
existence. Photo by Author, August 2026. |
Eastward from the little platform or station near the top of a green old hill with a wagon road running over it, a hogshead set half in the ground forms a receptacle for excellent drinking water, It is a fine Spring. And if were not for the green shine in the bottom might have been turned clear as crystal. Near this Spring stands a wild cherry tree, and sycamores and ashes grow there in the form of shrubs. I cut a stick from one of the ash trees intending to use it for a cane, but by the time I got home the place where the head ought to have been was greatly bent toward the ground and so I changed it from a cane to a bow for the latter use it serves excellently.
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| Map sketched by Dunbar showing West Depot, the River (Great Miami), and the CH & D. RR (Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Rail Road). The map appears to show the canal adjacent to the railroad and the river. "Our Excursion to the Bluffs, southwest of the city was taken, our journey lay along the canal..." Image courtesy of the Ohio History Connection. |
Excursion June 4th 1887. The day was hot and the scenery not half so beautiful as the Pinnacles except where we stood upon a hill and saw Dayton and her smooth brown fields lying below us. The Excursion to the Bluffs, southwest of the city was taken, our journey lay along the canal. Among different kinds of weeds some of which we found were poison. We found about twenty different kinds of leaves, and a peculiar flowerless plant that looked like country cheese. And grew upon the stump of trees. The scenery was very pretty from the side of the bluffs, the view of the fields and of the city being even prettier than at Oakwood, the fields seemed freshly ploughed, but were only made so by the recent rains, the cabbage plants were doing nicely though I saw a man with a little whisk sprinkling his plants to keep them free of insects."
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| 1914 Map of Dayton from Author's collection. The Cincinnati-Dayton RR runs parallel to the Miami Canal, also running parallel to the Miami River, just west of Village of Oakwood. The Fairgrounds (oval race track) is at top of map, east of river, north of Stewart Street. The Bluffs were here, where Werthner's class including Dunbar hiked along the canal. |
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| Modern view, courtesy of Google Earth. The Miami river has been re-routed, but the remnant of the original loop of the river was incorporated into NCR's Old River Park. Carillon Historical Park maintains a portion of the Miami Canal that passed through the southern edge of Carillon. |
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| Modern view of Dayton, courtesy of Google Earth. Locations of the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood in relation to Central High School, The Bluffs, and The Pinnacles is highlighted. |
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| "View looking north toward the City of Dayton from the moraine, March 27, 1920". Image courtesy of Carillon Historical Park. |
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Various authors of Wright Brother books have included the Werthner/Orville 1887 Huffman Prairie field trip account, either listing no primary source, or referencing The Bishop's Boys. No books prior to 1989 make mention of this account.
David McCullough, in "The Wright Brothers" (2015) page 112, wrote, "The likeliest 'flying field' they concluded after some investigation, was a peaceful cow pasture of approximately eighty-four acres eight miles northeast of town called Huffman Prairie. For years a popular science teacher at the high school, William Werthner, had been bringing his students, including Orville and Katharine, on field trips there- outings Orville loved, which probably had something to do with the choice." McCullough lists "The Bishop's Boys" as his source for this paragraph. (11)
In "To Conquer The Air" by James Tobin (2003), the author wrote, page 205, "Someone in the family mentioned a particular pasture east of town. Probably it was Orville; he knew the place from school field trips he had made as a boy. Dayton teachers still took children there to see on of the last remnants of genuine prairie left in Ohio, a tiny finger of the grasslands that rolled westward across Illinois to the Great Plains...." No source is listed for this information, though Tobin lists "The Bishop's Boys" as a source for items in this chapter. (12)
Earlier sources, such as Fred Kelly's "The Wright Brothers" (1943), makes no mention of Central High School field trips to Huffman Prairie. Instead, Kelly wrote, "To obtain practice, their first need was a suitable field, not too far from home. They found a cow pasture, fairly level, handy to an interurban railway, at Simms Station, eight miles from Dayton, toward Springfield. This field, often called the Huffman Prairie, was part of a farm belonging to a Dayton bank president, Torrence Huffman. Compared with a modern flying-field the area of sixty-eight acres they wanted to use was not quite ideal. It contained a number of trees, besides being near power wires and poles. But it was as good as they could find and without delay the Wrights introduced themselves to Mr. Huffman to ask if they might rent his pasture for their experiments. He granted the request and told them they were welcome to use the field free of charge. But he said he hoped they would drive his cows to a safe place and not run over them. By April 15, 1904, the Wrights had built a rough wooden shed at the Huffman pasture, in preparation for their experiments. Even it they had tried, the Wrights could hardly have kept secret what they were doing here at the Huffman prairie, with an interurban car line and two highways passing the field they were using...." (13)
An earlier book, "Boys Life of the Wright Brothers" by Mitchell V. Charnley, (1928), the author wrote, "The first step was to find an experimental grounds. Torrence Huffman, a resident of Dayton, came to the brothers with a solution of this difficulty. 'Why don't you go out to my land at Huffman Prairie, near Simms Station? It's just eight miles east of Dayton, and it ought to be about what you want.' Investigation proved it to be the exact thing- an open area far enough from town, the Wrights thought, to discourage too many curious onlookers from coming to watch...." The book was written for young readers, yet makes no mention that Orville and Katharine visited this field as students, which would have been of interest to the students for whom this book was written. (14)
Even in "The Wright Brothers" by John McMahon (1930) makes no mention of Orville having visited the Prairie while a student of William Werthner's. McMahon wrote, "To perfect their machine the brothers wanted a flying field near home. Wilbur called on Torrence Huffman, president of a Dayton bank. The conversation went something like this: 'Mr Huffman, you own an eighty-acre cow pasture about eight miles east of town- Simms Station on the interurban trolley.' 'You're right, Wilbur, and I have some fine cows there. What about it?' 'Orville and I would like to use that field for a little flying.' 'Flying? H'm! Read about you boys flying at Kitty Hawk. Would it hurt the cows?' 'No, Mr. Huffman. I can guarantee that. We would be over their heads...." (15)
It is revealing to note that in Ivonette Wright Miller's 1978 book, "Wright Reminiscences", none of the Wright descendants or acquaintances interviewed for the book make any mention of Orville visiting Huffman Prairie prior to 1904. (16)
Summary-
The account of William Werthner taking his 1887 Botany classes to Huffman Prairie can not be found in history prior to 1989. It appears in no book written about the Wright Brothers prior to that date. There is no mention of Orville going to Huffman Prairie in 1887 in any newspaper articles, family letters, family diaries, or claims by Orville or Werthner themselves. The account has been repeated many times since 1989 by various highly respected historians, all referring to the same supposed primary sources of Werthner's July 1912 "Personal Recollections of the Wrights", and Orville's 1887 Botany class notebook. However, examining these sources, it becomes crystal clear they do not point to a class field trip to Huffman Prairie in any way. Surprisingly, Orville and Dunbar's class notebooks both very clearly record where their class field trips and personal trips did occur, and they weren't to Huffman Prairie. This bit of folklore has been repeated for 37 years now. It is time to set it aside.
Visit to the Pinnacles, August 1, 2026-
After publishing this post, my wife and I made our first visit to the Wright Brothers Pinnacle Hiking Trail. The trail first opened September 21, 2024. I was surprised, but pleased, to come upon the following signage on the trail that corrects the history concerning Orville and Paul's 1887 Botany notebooks. Both Orville and Paul mention visits to other sites as well, to Stillwater, to Miller's Woods, to Minks Woods, to the Bluffs, etc. I would not assume all the tree branch and flower sketches were exclusively from examples they viewed at the Pinnacles as this signage states. Additionally, each mention one trip to the Pinnacles, not several trips.
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| Signage on the Wright Brothers Pinnacle Hiking Trail. "William Werthner...would bring his students here to the Pinnacle cliffs in Moraine....In his 1886-1887 high school botany class were two Dayton students that would go on to international fame- poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and airplane co-inventor and aviator Orville Wright. There is no mention of the notebooks indicating trips to Huffman Prairie. |
Copyright 2026-Getting the Story Wright
Notes-
1. Dayton Aviation Heritage Huffman Prairie, National Park Service U. S. Department of the Interior Brochure, single sheet printed two sides.
2. Visiting Huffman Prairie Flying Field July 26, 2026, I took photos of what I thought were all of the informational signs. This pictured sign was not observed, so I either missed it, or it has been replaced. The signs are occasionally replaced due to degradation due to weather.
3. The Bishop's Boys, A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, by Tom Crouch, 1989.
4. Aero Club of America Bulletin, Vol. I, No. 6, July, 1912, "My Recollections of the Wrights", by William Werthner.
5. What Dreams We Have, The Wright Brothers and Their Hometown of Dayton, Ohio, by Ann Honious, 2003.
6. Wright State University Libraries, Core Scholar, Special Collections and Archives, Wright Brothers Collection (MS-1), Wright Family School Items >1. Botany Sketchbook- Orville Wright
7. University of Dayton Wright Brothers- Charles F. Kettering Oral History Project, 2-18-67 Interview with Henry Stout, University Archives and Special Collections.
8. Discovery and Renewal on Huffman Prairie, Where Aviation Took Wing, by David Nolin, 2018.
9. Dayton Public Schools Annual Report of the Board of Education for the School Year Ending August 31, 1886, published 1887. Data for 1886- 302 students enrolled in high school. Average enrollment of pupils to a teacher is about 40. In September of 1885, enrollment of 129 pupils in the First Year Class, 85 in the Second Year Class, 55 in the Junior Class, and 33 in the Senior Class. For total of 302, of these, 107 were boys, and 195 girls. By end of year, 66 had withdrawn, leaving 236. I did not have data for 1887, but assuming similar to 85/86. The number withdrawn from the First Year Class was 34, which would have left 95 students taking Botany in the second half of the school year. At average of 40 students per class, Werthner would have taught at least 2 separate Botany classes in 1887, with Orville and Dunbar in separate classes. Book from Author's collection.
10. Paul Laurence Dunbar botanical sketchbook 1887. From https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collections/p267401coll32/id/29488.
11. The Wright Brothers, by David McMullough, 2015, Ch 6, Out At Huffman Prairie.
12. To Conquer The Air, The Wright Brothers And The Great Race For Flight, by James Tobin, 2003, Ch. 8, What Hath God Wrought?
13. The Wright Brothers, by Fred Kelly, 1943, Ch 8, Experiments of 1904-'05.
14. Boy's Life Of The Wright Brothers, by Mitchell V. Charnley, 1928, Ch 30, The Second Airplane.
15. The Wright Brothers, Fathers of Flight, by John R. McMahon, 1930, Ch. 8.
16. Wright Reminiscences, compiled by Ivonette Wright Miller, 1978.
