The Wright Company Records
Rediscovered But In Danger

Now, after almost a century of absence, the records of the Wright Company have turned up, complete and intact, in the hands of a private collector. There are hundreds of priceless documents  including the original seven-page document that formed the Wright Company, with the signatures and wax seals of both Wilbur and Orville Wright. This is the moment of genesis for the entire aerospace industry, the beginning of one of the most exciting and inspiring endeavors of the last century

The papers are a fascinating read, according to the present owner, Joe Gertler. "The Wright Company documents record the floundering infancy of an industry with no heritage to build on, and no clear direction in which to steer. Were it not for the insatiable curiosity of a public starved for entertainment and finally, the discovery of its various capabilities as a tool of war, aeroplanes might, very possibly, have disappeared as quickly as they were discovered, in the press. If one had to sum up in one word the common theme of the majority of 900 Wright Company letters read in chronological order, it would be frustration."

Joe Gertler is the "Indiana Jones" of aviation, a finder of rare aviation artifacts who has worked with museums and aircraft restorers the world over. According to him, these files were sent to the newly formed Wright-Martin Company when the Wright Company and the Martin Company (another early airplane manufacturer) merged in 1917. Then they became the property of the Curtiss-Wright Company when the Wright-Martin and Curtiss companies merged a decade later. And there they sat until 1984, when the Curtiss-Wright Company went belly-up. They threw out all of their old records and a man who was hired to haul away the trash found them in the dumpster.

The man called Joe Gertler a few years later and told Joe what he had. "I hung up on him," recalls Joe. "I get calls from cranks all the time, and this sounded much too good to be true." But after a few days, he began to worry that it might be true, and in a few weeks he called the man back.

"He was a very hard person to negotiate with," said Joe. "He changed his mind constantly. For two and a half years, I lived in constant fear that he would sell the documents off piecemeal to collectors and the information in the combined records -- the picture they paint of early aviation -- would be lost forever." But two and half years of patience paid off, and Joe was able to save the entire set of records. "He did the right thing," said Joe about the man who saved them from destruction. "History will be grateful that he had the presence of mind to save the documents and that he didn't break them up."

That was only half the battle, however. For the past three years, Joe has been trying to find a home for the documents were they can be properly archived, preserved, and made available to the public.