What Car Did Harry Lyon Drive? – The Answer to Tuesday’s Search Challenge

The next step is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine when youve determined who the members of the flight crew were. To do this, open the Wikipedia page for each member of the flight crew then use keyboard commands of CTRL+F (Windows computers) or COMMAND+F (Mac computers) to search each page for the word “Maine.” Only the pages for Charles Kingsford Smith and Harry Lyon consist of a match for “Maine” and the match on Smiths page is only found in the context of the word “remained.” Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks website which is mentioned in the tips for this challenge.

Based on the lists of American car manufacturers and what we understand about Lyon, Ford is the most typical guess as it was the most popular brand name in the United States at the time and is still in the forefront of Americans minds today when they think of vehicle makers. Now its a matter of comparing images of automobiles produced by those manufacturers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

By zooming in on the image you can look at some crucial information consisting of the shape of the front door on the vehicle, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the car.

At this point the procedure becomes a little bit of uncertainty followed by a procedure of contrast and elimination. There are some points to think about before guessing at what sort of vehicle remains in the image. Heres a list of those indicate think about:.
The photo was taken in 1927, a year before the flight of the Southern Cross.
From checking out him, we know that Lyon was not a male of exceptional wealth, but probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based upon Lyons monetary standing in addition to looking at the details of the cars and truck we can probably eliminate high-end brands from our uncertainty.
When we zoom-in on the vehicle we can see that it has some flaws as the result of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Noteworthy, there are what seems two wooden bench seats behind the drivers seat. The back half of the body appears to be wood also.

Step 4: Find the recommendation to a car. At the extremely bottom of this Maine Memory Network page about Harry Lyon youll see a photo of Lyon sitting in a car in his driveway in 1927. (The image is copyrighted so youll have to see it there)..

Alternatively, you might have followed the tip about utilizing the Maine Memory Networks site then headed there to do a search within the site for recommendations to Harry Lyon.

There are a few ways to get to the responses. What Ive outlined below is the most direct method to get to the answers. (Thanks once again to Daniel Russells.
Pleasure of Search for motivating the development of search obstacles like this one).

Now that weve considered the points above we can start guessing at the producer of the automobile and the production year. Keeping in mind that cars didnt considerably change from one model year to the next at this time, if they did at all, were thinking the year according to years or half-decade is a feasible technique to this challenge. At this moment, turning to Google Image search is our next action. A look for “1920s cars” or “1910s vehicles” is a starting location. However, those results usually feature examples of high-end vehicles of the time. Were trying to find cars and trucks that could have been owned by middle to upper-middle class people of the time. At this point at the same time its helpful to have a list of American automobile producers of the 1910s and 1920s. Once again, we may rely on Wikipedia for such a list or to any variety of antique car sites for such a list.

Action 3: Find the referral to Paris Hill. If you follow the link to the Maine Memory Network from the Wikipedia page about Harry Lyon, youll discover a relatively long short article about Lyon and his life consisting of that his parents purchased a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Disclosure: I spent a minimum of ten hours comparing pictures of cars to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To validate my info about the vehicle I got the aid of one the leading antique automobile preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig. Jeff is a buddy of mine and the curator of Bob Bahres charming vehicle collection housed on Paris Hill in Paris, Maine. You can check out more about the collection here..

To do this youll desire to expand the photo discovered on the Maine Memory Networks post about Lyon. By zooming in on the image you can look at some important details including the shape of the front door on the cars and truck, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the car.

Step 1: Identify the airplane and its historic significance.The image itself offers us a huge tip. Do a fast Google look for “southern cross plane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the aircraft. Its important to include “plane” in the search since browsing Google for simply “southern cross” will put a video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song Southern Cross at the top of the outcomes. Further down the search engine result page for “southern cross” youll find links to posts about the constellation of the same name, links to an energy business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry. You wont see any referral to an aircraft in the very first 10 pages of Google search results when searching “southern cross.” “southern cross airplane” isnt even a term that Google recommends when you get in “southern cross.”.

Action 2: Identify who flew on the aircraft.
On that very same Wikipedia page youll discover that the four members of the flight crew were Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

A search for “1920s automobiles” or “1910s automobiles” is a beginning place. Compare the pictures carefully to those of the picture of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll start to see that the shape of the door in his automobile does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I invested at least ten hours comparing images of cars and trucks to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To verify my information about the automobile I enlisted the assistance of one the leading antique car preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

On Tuesday I shared
a search obstacle and wrote that you could email me if you desired the responses to the questions in the challenge. I got
The other day morning I invested time composing out the procedure of finding the responses to Tuesdays search obstacle. If you missed out on the obstacle, you can
find it here. The solution is detailed listed below..

As mentioned above, the leading Google search outcome for “southern cross aircraft” is the Wikipedia page about the plane. Check out that page and youll discover that it was the very first airplane to be flown from the United States to Australia.

Usage Google Images to find images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars produced in those years. Compare the photos closely to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his car and youll begin to discover that the shape of the door in his car doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). In all three cases, the Dodge examples are consistent with what we see in the picture of Lyon in his car.

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