Charles E. Taylor : 1868-1956 The Wright Brothers Mechanician

On September 20th, 1894, a young man, his wife, and new son, left Kearney, Nebraska, to start a new life in the Gem City: Dayton, Ohio. Little did he, or anyone else for that matter, realize the part he was about to play in creating the first of these so-called "four-bangers", for a pair of contemporary geniouses, surnamed Wright. After working in several area manufacturing concerns, including his own machine shop for a short time, Charlie Taylor was hired in 1901 by the Wright brothers to work in their latest bicycle shop on West Third Street. Around Christmas 1902, "the boys", as Charlie affectionately referred to them, asked him if he could build an engine, a gasoline-powered four-banger to sustain them in flight with their 1903 airplane. When interviewed several times later in life, he testified simply that he replied to their request, "I can and I did it." There is a good deal more to the story than the building of the first "four-banger". Charlie Taylor was approaching 40 when he "did it" in 1903 and lived long enough to witness the advent of such things as 2,800 horsepower radials, rocket and jet engines, two world wars, worldwide airways, and supersonic flight. He left this life just before man ventured into space. His story spans almost 90 years, from the American Civil War to the Korean War. Told out of the context of Charlie's life, the building of the 1903 engine would simply be an interesting historical fact. Within the context of his life it becomes a human and, to some extent, everyman's story.