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Wilbur Wright died in 1912. At the time Orville had wired me to come to Dayton, but I had to ask to be excused because my brother was in a very critical condition at the time. As soon as he passed away, I made the trip to Dayton to see what the situation was. I found Orville in bed with siatic rhuematism and neuritis. He has a near fatal fall in Virginia in 1908 and had never fully recovered from his injuries. He had engaged a man to run the factory, it was virtually closed with only a few men at work. I could see there was no opportunity here. I offered to do anything Orville wanted, but he said, "Until I get well there is not any chance of doing anything." So I was on my own again.
To properly put on a theatrical show, contracted for by Arthur Hopkins in 1908, I had my friend Bill Selig came out to the White City Amusement Park with his motion picture camera and take motion pictures of all the various phases of an airship ascent from and back into the enclosure. He made 1000 feet of negative and 1000 feet of print for which I paid him three hundred and fifty dollars. Bill was at the head of the Selig Polyscope Company and the business was not too prosperous at the time. He confidentially informed me that he was very glad to get the $350. There was so sales tax. That was in 1905.
Again, at the same location in 1914, I decided to make a series of motion pictures myself. I rented an Earnemam Camera and purchased the negatives and hired an operator to turn the crank while I managed the ship. We secured a thousand feet of very good film from the airship on a trip down over Chicago and back again, and out over the lake front to the four mile crib. One of the sights