National Aviation Heritage Alliance Wins Grant to Repair

National Aviation Heritage Alliance Wins Grant to Repair Paul Laurence Dunbar House Funds from "Save America's Treasures" program will help preserve poet's home. (DAYTON) The National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA) was awarded a Save America's Treasures grant to repair the Paul Laurence Dunbar House in Dayton, Ohio. The $350,000 grant will allow NAHA in partnership with the Ohio History Connection to address long-standing structure and preservation issues. Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began writing stories and verse when he was a child. He became one of the first influential Black poets in American literature and was internationally acclaimed for his dialectic verse in collections such as Majors and Minors (1895) and Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896). In 1936, the Ohio General Assembly dedicated Dunbar's house as a memorial to him, making it the first state memorial in Ohio to honor African American History. Today, the Ohio History Connection owns the House, and the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park Service operates the site. The Save America's Treasures grant will allow for major work to the building, including foundation repairs, repair to exterior brick walls, new drainage, and other structural needs. The Paul Laurence Dunbar House is being supported in part by the Save America's Treasures grant from the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. Additional support is provided by the National Aviation Heritage Alliance and Ohio History Connection. For public inquiries about this work, contact Mackensie Wittmer, Executive Director of the National Aviation Heritage Alliance at mdw@aviationheritagearea.org About the National Aviation Heritage Alliance: The National Aviation Heritage Alliance is the management entity of the National Aviation Heritage Area, an 8-county region in West Central Ohio. The Heritage Area is the recognized center of aviation heritage tourism and aerospace innovation, sustaining the legacy of the Wright Brothers. The mission is to preserve and develop the assets in the National Aviation Heritage Area and promote the heritage and future of aerospace. www.VisitNAHA.com 4-30,5-1,5-2/2023