The History: Bishop Milton Wright noted in his diary, "... O. Chanute spent the evening with the boys." After corresponding for over a year Octave Chanute met the Wrights for the first time in their home. Chanute brought the French anemometer with him and spent June 26 and 27th with the Wrights.

While no record of this first meeting exists, based on subsequent letters it appears evident that the three may have discussed:

• two articles Wilbur had written for The Aeronautical Journal and llustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen;
• that the Wrights should publish more details of their experiments and results;
• the possibility that Chanute's assistants Edward Huffaker or George Spratt could test one of Chanute's machines at the Wrights' Kitty Hawk camp;
• a potential Chanute visit at the Kitty Hawk camp;
• that the propeller might look like a lacrosse stick.

Octave Chanute, Orville, Edward Huffaker and Wilbur (standing) at the 1901 campsite

It is probable that Chanute visited the Wrights workshop behind the bicycle shop where the new glider was build and that the meeting may also have inspired Chanute to ask Wilbur to speak at the Western Society of Engineers later that year.

Quotation from the book Diaries 1857-1917 by Bishop Milton Wright.