13. Working together throughout their adult lives, the Wright Brothers founded a printing company before moving into the manufacture and sale of bicycles in the 1890s
Founding a printing shop, using a printing press the pair had designed and built themselves, in March 1889 the brothers launched a weekly newspaper: the West Side News, for which Orville was listed as the publisher and Wilbur as the editor. Lasting only four months, transitioning their publication during this time into a daily periodical called The Evening Item, the duo pivoted towards commercial printing, printing the works of renowned poet Paul Laurence Dumber as well as other publications including the Dayton Tattler. In December 1892, seeking to profit from the national bicycle boom, the Wright Brothers returned to their passionate roots in mechanical engineering and opened a bike repair and sales store.
The Wright Cycle Exchange, later known as the Wright Cycle Company, quickly garnered a reputation and from 1896 the brothers designed and sold their own bikes; among the features offered were an oil-retaining wheel hub and coaster brakes – both commonplace features of the modern industry today. Using the profits from the company to finance their experiments in aviation, the pair even built a six-foot wind tunnel on the second floor of their shop where they conducted tests on over 200 scale-model wing designs. After the success of their aviation endeavors, the company was closed in 1909; the building was moved in 1937 to the Greenfield Village Museum by Henry Ford to be preserved.