AUGUST 23 ISSUE ANSWERS: It’s 1907 in Romeo. Lyman Holmes is the manager of the Holmes foundry on West Lafayette Street, where the large parking lot is currently located behind The Office Pub in downtown Romeo. This foundry under different names was in Romeo before 1868. Metal bars arrived by train, pulled by wagon from the depot and melted into liquid in the oven. The liquid iron was poured into oily sand encased in boxes to form products for the Romeo carriage businesses. Later, Lyman Holmes on the right in the photo discovered that Henry Ford was having difficulty getting enough castings of cylinder jugs for his Model-N, R and S cars in 1907. Lyman got the contract for casting these needed engine parts during 1907. In 1908 the Model-T was designed with a one piece four cylinder engine block. Lyman Holmes got the exclusive contract to cast all of these engine blocks. It took 125 workers at the foundry to keep up with the production. The finished castings were shipped by train to the Dodge Brothers factory where the internal engine components were installed. Dodge then shipped the finished engines to the Piquette Avenue factory where the cars were assembled and sold. According to my research at the Benson Ford Research Center,