The History: Octave Chanute responded to Wilbur's letter of August 31st today. Chanute's time has been occupied on other business. Four different railroads may build plants which will treat and preserve the wood used for railroad ties [the beams that fastened to railroad rails to keep the rails in line]. Chanute, an expert in these techniques, would operate these plants.

Chanute has enclosed a letter from Mr. Merrill (see July 29, 1902 July 31, 1902 and August 9, 1902). Merrill has requested specific information on the curvature of the Wrights' wings. Chanute did not know this information and has given Merrill the Wrights' address so that he can write to the brothers directly.

Merrill has devised a "soaring tower". A sloped incline constructed behind the tower would direct the wind upward. A glider enclosed in the tower would allegedly be able to soar for hours.

Chanute expresses concern to Wilbur regarding the weight of the their machine: 675 pounds is high. " I am so interested in your continued success that I wish you had planned a lighter and more easily started machine ...." He relays to Wilbur that Captain Ferdinand Ferber's machine only weighs 495 pounds.

Chanute was educated as a civil engineer. A civil engineer is generally involved in public or private civil (i.e. civilian) projects. Civil engineering projects include highways, bridges, water and wastewater treatment plants, sewer systems.

Among Chanute's projects were the design and construction of the Chicago stockyards (an area where livestock are temporarily held before marketing, shipping or slaughter) and the completion of the first bridge across the Missouri River in Kansas City.

The Wright brothers' copy of Octave Chanute's "Progress In Flying Machines" book. (From their personal library now housed in Special Collections, Dunbar Library, Wright State University.)

Chanute was interested in human flight as a young man and collected all the information he could find. However, he had a successful engineering practice and the subject of human flight was not well respected and considered a crazy idea by many people. Subsequently, he packed his notes away until a later time. With the boom in railroad construction westward, Chanute established a railroad tie business.

Now financially successful, Chanute renewed his "aerial navigation" studies and published a serious series of technical articles between 1891 and 1893. In 1894, his book "Progress In Flying Machines" established Chanute as the "senior statesman of aerial navigation". His reputation as a successful, serious engineer gave the field credibility and suppressed some of the negative attitudes previously associated with human flight experimenters.