Donahue Studios, Evansville IN: 1947 photos of a Goose

[Rajay]

I just came across a Web site with an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) portfolio of old photos taken by Donahue Studios in Evansville, IN, mostly in the late 1940's. It was interesting to see all of the old cars and trucks that he (Mr. Donahue, whoever he was) seemed to be so interested in. A lot of them were wrecked, too. Maybe he had a contract to document things for insurance companies. Who knows? (That's rhetorical!)

Of course, the MOST interesting photos to me were the two of NC74107 taken in April 1947, presumably at the Evansville airport. It was a Grumman G-21A Goose in Sun Oil Company's (Sunoco) corporate livery. I have no record of that registration in my Goose database and so I can't indentify that Goose by serial number. I haven't been able to find any other references online to either that particular registration or to any Goose aircraft operated by Sun Oil.

Any suggestions for other sources to check - or even more importantly, if there are any WIX'ers in the Evansville, IN area who might have access to sources of local history - your help would be appreciated! Thanks.

FYI: It's a big pdf file, but you can find it here:
http://www.donahuestudiosphotographs.com/documents/Donahue_Studios_Vehicles.pdf

[The Inspector]

Check with GOOSE CENTRAL he's got all serial numbers with original registration #'s, but your's isn't the original N # (and the FAA website doesn't recognize NC #'s are you surprised?)perhaps he can turn you on to some more information or who to contact.

[Rajay]

I've known about Eddy Haynes' site (Goose Central) for quite a while and I've usually found that my own information is a little bit (LOT!) more up-to-date and more accurate than his is. (I don't have my information posted on a Web site, so it's a lot easier to keep current - just a basic Excel spreadsheet to maintain; no HTML code!)

There's nothing on his site about Sunoco or "NC74107" - at least that I've been able to find. He doesn't have a search function within his site, but the usual serach engines (Google, etc.) seem to pull up pages from within his site when there is a hit.