page_title: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial photograph of Wilbur Wright Field, now Wright Patterson Air Force Base circa 1920.
context_page_description: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene and Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot. Patterson Field is approximately 16 kilometres northeast of Dayton; Wright Field is approximately 8.0 kilometres northeast of Dayton.
  The host unit at Wright-Patterson AFB is the 88th Air Base Wing, assigned to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and Air Force Materiel Command. The 88 ABW operates the airfield, maintains all infrastructure and provides security, communications, medical, legal, personnel, contracting, finance, transportation, air traffic control, weather forecasting, public affairs, recreation and chaplain services for more than 60 associate units.
  The base's origins begin with the establishment of Wilbur Wright Field on 22 May and McCook Field in November 1917, both established by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps as World War I installations. McCook was used as a testing field and for aviation experiments.
context_section_description: Prehistoric Indian mounds of the Adena culture at Wright-Patterson are along P Street and, at the Wright Brothers Memorial, a hilltop mound group.
  Aircraft operations on land now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base began in 1904–1905 when Wilbur and Orville Wright used an 84-acre (340,000 m²) plot of Huffman Prairie for experimental test flights with the Wright Flyer III. Their flight exhibition company and the Wright Company School of Aviation returned 1910–1916 to use the flying field.
  World War I transfers of land that later became WPAFB include 2,075-acre (8.40 km²) (including the Huffman Prairie Flying Field) along the Mad River leased to the Army by the Miami Conservancy District, the adjacent 40 acres (160,000 m²) purchased by the Army from the District for the Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot, and a 254-acre (1.03 km²) complex for McCook Field just north of downtown Dayton between Keowee Street and the Great Miami River. In 1918, Wilbur Wright Field agreed to let McCook Field use hangar and shop space as well as its enlisted mechanics to assemble and maintain airplanes and engines under the direction of Chief of Air Service Mason Patrick.
  After World War I, 347 German aircraft were brought to the United States—some were incorporated into the Army Aeronautical Museum (in 1923 the Engineering Division at McCook Field "first collected technical artifacts for preservation"). The training school at Wilbur Wright Field was discontinued. Wilbur Wright Field and the depot merged after World War I to form the Fairfield Air Depot. The Patterson family formed the Dayton Air Service Committee, Inc which held a campaign that raised $425,000 in two days and purchased 4,520.47 acres (18.2937 km²) northeast of Dayton, including Wilbur Wright Field and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field. In 1924, the Committee presented the deeds to president Calvin Coolidge for the construction of a new aviation engineering center. The entire acreage (including the Fairfield Air Depot) was designated Wright Field, which had units such as the Headquarters, 5th Division Air Service (redesignated 5th Division Aviation in 1928), and its 88th Observation Squadron and 7th Photo Section. New facilities were built 1925–27 on the portion of Wright Field west of Huffman Dam to house all of the McCook Field functions being relocated.
caption: Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Air Depot, c. 1920
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