Two brothers from Dayton came to Kill Devil Hills because the U.S. Weather Bureau told them the winds were right. On December 17, 1903, they flew — four powered flights from level ground, the first controlled, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. That's what the ground here holds. A 60-foot granite monument went up on the hill in 1932; a bas-relief in granite followed in 2003, a hundred years out, capturing the Flyer at the moment it left the earth. The wind that brought the Wrights here never stopped being useful — Kitty Hawk Kites has been teaching beginners to fly at Jockey's Ridge since 1974, on the tallest active sand dune system on the East Coast. A brewery down the road in Kill Devil Hills runs on wind power. The Outer Banks didn't trade on this history. It just kept using what was already here.
