We were going to Carillon Historical Park. I had the address and knew it was a major spot in Dayton. I opened the AT&T Navigator app and found a map of where we were currently located with a little blue dot that represented our car and it was moving on the map. How other worldly? I scrolled the map and found the park. Realizing we were heading the wrong direction, Claude turned around and I was able to guide him and watch that little blue dot take us right to Carillon Historical Park. My goodness, Claude and I might move into this new age yet!!
Carillon Historical Park has the most recognized landmark for the city of Dayton.
We started our tour with another film in the Kettering Family Education Center viewing the story of Dayton. This story is told by five animatron men representing a significant part of Dayton's history. They included Colonel Deeds, the Wright brothers, John H. Patterson (founder of NCR) and Charles Kettering. These men tell the story of Dayton including all the inventions that can be attributed to Daytonian residents. We were amazed at all the inventions that originated in Dayton. We learned that Delco stands for Dayton Electrical Laboratories Company. And, among other things, that pop tabs were invented in Dayton. You feel a big part of the story they are telling because everytime rain or water is mentioned a little bit of mist comes down from the ceiling of the theater on the audience, when a plane takes off wind is blown onto the audience, when there is big movement the seats you are sitting in vibrate a little. It was a good start to our tour.
There is also a museum that is a part of the Kettering Family Education Center. We toured this museum with its amazing display of old cash registers, a carousel room, old equipment that Claude I remembered (Yike!!), shelves of toys made in Dayton through the years and the list goes on.
In the open lobby area outside the theater and the museum, a large screen television monitor attached to the ceiling showed a video of a man playing the carillon. Delightful to stand and watch and listen.
Then we headed outside to walk some acreage. Buildings that are a significant part of Dayton's past have been moved to this acreage and restored. You walk the street and enter the buildings you are interested in viewing. Here are some of my favorites:
Locust Grove School No. 12, a one room school house. I kept thinking of Sadieville's Rosenwald School and looking for features that might be used there.
Newcom Tavern (1796) the oldest building in Dayton. This building contained two pieces of furniture that fascinated Claude and me. There was rocking chair for Mrs. Newcom. She had a bad back and it was built to give her relief. I thought it would be a great idea for Papa. Claude fell in love with a 'table chair'. He wanted to be sure we had a picture so he could contemplate making one. Claude just kept saying, "That is so cool!!"
Newcom House, just because its a small house with huge pillars out front. It just makes the proportion all off but it is still simply beautiful.
Bowling Green Station, with its date stamped nails used to test the wood in the rail ties.
James F. Dicke Family Trasportation Center, unique old trains, buses and wagons.
There were also large open air things like the Morrison Iron Bridge (1881), the Miami and Erie Canal Lock No. 17, and the Smith Covered Bridge.
The final building we entered and spent time with an actual tour guide was the John W. Berry, Sr. Wright Brothers Aviation Center.
The end of this building is a reproduction of one of the Wright Brothers bicycle shops. There are actually several buildings that were added in stages to tell the Wright Brothers story. In the back was their research and development room. That is my name for it. It contained a wind tunnel they made to test for how to make the wings of their plane. This is the first windmill ever made. They made 200 possible wing shapes and tested them all only to find the 7th one they made was the best one. That is tenacity.
Also included in this building is the 1905 Wright Flyer III. It was the first plane to take off repeatedly, be controlled by a pilot for a length of time and land undamaged. As it turns out, Orville Wright was still alive when this part of the museum was under construction. He was the one who determined the layout of this particular room and which plane should occupy it. Others wanted an earlier version of a Wright brothers plane. Orville didn't want them to use any earlier version. He wanted it to be the one they could actually fly for extended periods of time and control. Once they knew how to fly using the winds and weight of the air in Kitty Hawk, they stayed in Ohio and did test flights in a field outside Dayton. This plane was the one that worked and Orville felt it was the one to display. He died two years previous to the opening of Carillon Historical Park but made sure they had the right plane in the right place (no pun intended).
To fly this one of the Wright brothers, Orville or Wilbur, had to lay on their stomachs for the flight. There was a stick used by their left hand to control something and a paddle things used by their right hand to control something else. In addition, there was a mechanism under their pelvis area that they had to control by moving their hips. It took a lot of dexterity to operate one of these planes. We have been to Kitty Hawk and I don't remember learning about the mechanism under their pelvis area.
The last room had a poster on the wall of a flight around the statue of Liberty on September 29, 1909 made by Wilbur Wright. Wilbur did not know how to swim. He realized he would drown if the plane took a nose-dive while flying over water so he fitted a canoe under the plane. If the plane started to go down, he could release the canoe and have a means of not drowning. When we entered this room I noticed a canoe hanging from the ceiling. I was grateful for the explanation at the end of the tour.
That was the end of our visit to Carillon Historical Park. This is another tourist destination I would recommend. There were few visitors on our snowy Friday visit so we could make our tour fairly quickly. We spent the entire afternoon. We didn't visit Culp's Cafe which was open for lunch. But I think we saw most everything else that was available to walk through. There is a small charge but it was well worth the price of admission.
We needed to find our hotel room. Out came the cell phone and the AT&T app was opened. I let it locate where we were and then entered our destination and asked for directions. Voila...we were headed to our hotel. We even scored by finding a Max and Erma's for a delicious dinner while the snow fell outside. A great first day of our two day adventure.
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