Bruce,
Harleigh Holmes' first job of record (age 18) was as a simple "helper" at the F.M. Davis Iron Works at 8th & Larimer in Denver in 1898, but it is not known how much he may have actually gleaned from this very brief employment as an unskilled teenager.
As "Harl" came of age, he dabbled in his father's real estate and land development business, and then together, they worked on earthen dam and irrigation schemes in support of their land development operations.
The reason Harleigh became interested in developing front-wheel-drive was that when he was riding his motorcycle in the rain & mud on various trails up to one of his earthen dam sites west of Carbondale (
circa March, 1912), his rear wheel kept "kicking out" and fish-tailing. Harleigh intuitively reasoned that "pulling" a wheel through the oozing mud, rather than trying to "push" it, would be more effective, his experiments with a homemade front-wheel-drive began, and the rest is history.
Harleigh is not known to have had any mechanical training whatsoever, and we have no way of knowing how much he had heard/read about other patents or experiments already in progress during that initial 1912-1913 development period (Carbondale was a very small Colorado mountain town). However, he would sketch out his very raw ideas on paper, and local Carbondale blacksmith Hugh C. Pattison would then build working models for him out of scrap iron. Harleigh would experiment, then go back and forth to the blacksmith for continuing tweaks and modifications as needed.
The takeaway is that with no known mechanical training, Harleigh did not know what the "engineering rules" were, had no prior "baggage," and simply created his own extremely innovative and truly unique "power yoke" that eventually "spanked" all competition (FWD, the Militor, and others) in formal military testing at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in 1925. Art Herrington, Chief Engineer for the US Army Quartermaster Corps, was so deeply impressed, that he left the Army and came to work for Coleman by 1926, before eventually leaving in about 1930 to co-found Marmon-Herrington, using much of what he had learned.
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In response to another post, Harleigh Holmes began his first discussions with the US Army in June of 1917, and then in August 1917, shipped one of his conversions to the Quartermasters Department, Southern Headquarters, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for field testing. It is assumed this was a Model-T Ford Truck with a Holmes Front Drive (HFD) conversion, but it is not known what became of these field trials, and what other trucks were also invited. Does anyone else know?
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Back to my original question...
Still looking for the Aug 1916 edition of "Motor Mechanics" if anyone has access to one.
Craig H. Trout
ATHS Life Member
Researching Holmes / Plains / Coleman / American Coleman Trucks
and selected production partners, such as Columbian Steel Tank, Quick Way Truck Shovel, Howe-Coleman, International Harvester, Marmon-Herrington, and SnowBlast