Wilbur and Orville Wright's official patent for their "flying machine," submitted in 1903, is an important slice of American history. The patent was supposed to be stored in the National Archives, where historical treasures are housed. However, in 2000, officials discovered that it seemed to have vanished. Researchers looked through storage vaults, filing cabinets, and archives around the country, to no avail. Some wondered whether the document had been stolen. Finally, Chris Abraham, newly assigned to the National Archives' document recovery program, volunteered to solve the puzzle. Abraham suspected that the patent might have been mistakenly sent to a huge storage facility in Kansas where other, less important patent documents were kept. Abraham was right: after searching through boxes and boxes of documents, he found the patent on March 22, 2016.
The official patent for Wilbur and Orville Wright's "flying machine," submitted in 1903, went missing from the National Archives in 2000. Researchers and officials searched through storage vaults, filing cabinets, and archives across the country but couldn't locate it. It was a significant piece of American history, so there was concern that it might have been stolen.
To solve the mystery, Chris Abraham, who was newly assigned to the National Archives' document recovery program, took up the challenge. He had a hunch that the patent might have been mistakenly sent to a large storage facility in Kansas where other less important patent documents were kept. He thought it might have been mixed up with those documents.
Abraham's intuition proved to be correct. He began searching through numerous boxes of documents stored in the Kansas facility and, after a comprehensive effort, he finally discovered the missing patent on March 22, 2016.
This incident highlights the importance of thorough detective work and persistence in uncovering historical artifacts.