The Wright family home at Millville, Indiana, evokes life in 1867 with Milton and Susan Wright and their three sons, Reuchlin, Lorin, and baby Wilbur. The original house was built in 1845, and Milton purchased it on September 17, 1865, for $700.00 because Susan wanted the family to settle down and own a home for the birth of their third child, Wilbur. Milton later became a bishop of the United Brethren Church in Christ; he had met Susan Koerner at Hartsville College, and they married in 1859 when he was 31 and she was 28. Wilbur took his first steps here at 10 1/2 months, which Milton considered a sign of intelligence, and all five Wright children could read and write before entering school. After years of ill health, Susan died of consumption in 1889 at age 58, and Milton wrote in his diary, “Thus went out the light of my life.” Susan never knew of her sons’ dream. Milton flew once with Orville when he was 81 years old, and Milton died in 1917 at age 88. After being bought by the state on April 21, 1929, for $3,500.00, the house had already passed through several owners and renters and had fallen into disrepair. In 1955, the state razed it and replaced it with a 50-year monument because maintenance was thought too costly. In 1971, Governor Whitcomb agreed with local people that the birthplace needed a house, and an archeological dig located the original foundation for reconstruction. The present house was built in 1973, incorporating the material and design elements of the original Wright home as closely as possible. In 1988, the state planned to move the home because of low attendance, but in 1995 it recognized that the community could preserve the birthplace, and on Nov. 3, 1995, deeded the property to the newly formed Wilbur Wright Birthplace Preservation Society. The Wright family’s homes included farms near Rushville, Fairmont, Andersonville, and Millville in Indiana; Hartsville, Indiana; Dayton, Ohio, where Orville and Katharine were born on Hawthorn Street; Cedar Rapids and Adair in Iowa; Dublin and Richmond in Indiana; and later Dayton residences on Hawthorn Street and at Hawthorn Hill Mansion.