Fifty years before the world wide web and more than 80 years ahead of the phenomenon of social media, Wiley Post, was (in today’s parlance) an “influencer.”
Wiley Post went from being a dare-devil barnstormer and pilot of the rich and famous to becoming the first person to fly solo around the world. He was honored with the keys to New York City, celebrated with a pair of ticker-tape parades, and hosted at the White House by two different presidents. When people said the name “Wiley”, everyone knew who they meant.
Like many aviators and astronauts, Wiley Post was wired with the desire to break through barriers of distance and speed. He set world records and painted them on the side of his plane.
Wiley Post was a man of curiosity and adventure born into a working family of cotton farmers who bounced around Texas and Oklahoma, finally settling near Maysville, Oklahoma.
How many times do you hear this about inventors Wiley Post did not like school. He did favor mechanical things. According to accounts he saved up to buy one of the first bicycles in the county, he studied “newly arrived sewing machines,” and he disassembled and reassembled farming machinery in the field.
Before he was in his teens, Post went to work as a traveling repair man. He saw his first airplane in flight, a Curtiss biplane (often called a Curtiss Pusher as its engine and propeller were behind the pilot’s seat), at a county fair. He was
February 12, 2021 By Capt. David Smith
In 1923 the Nashville Bridge Company, Nashville, Tenn., launched a vessel that was a “first.” It was the sternwheel towboat Harvey, built for T.L. Herbert & Son. The boat was 93 by 26.8 feet with a hull depth of 4.3 feet. It had a steel hull with a cabin built entirely of wood.
The Harvey’s immediate claim to fame was the means of power. According to Capt. Fred Way in the 1951 edition of the
Inland River Record, the boat had the first installation of fully diesel engines on the inland rivers. These were Worthington engines developing a total of 240 hp. They were connected to twin sternwheels turned by gears.