Business at the bicycle shop was steady, with enough growth each year to be encouraging. In 1897 the brothers transferred the company to a new shop, at 1127 West Third, a house that had been remodeled into a duplex storefront. The owner, Charles Webbert, rented the other half of the building to Fetters & Shank, undertakers. The Wrights were kept busy honing their carpentry skills. They remodeled the back room at 1127 West Third into a well-equipped light machine shop, complete with line shafting driven by the old gas engine. They fixed up the house as well, adding the porch, installing shutters on all the windows, and doing some remodeling upstairs. With Katharine away at college and the bishop still on the road, the two men had a great deal of time by themselves. Orville, at least, developed a serious pride in mastering the culinary arts. When they tired of their own cooking, they boarded with a widow down the block. There was plenty of relaxation, as Ed Ellis, Wilbur’s best friend, recalled in 1909: Years ago when they were in the bicycle business, the country runs with “all the trimmings”
