Arthur Steen Lyon was born March 5, 1883, in Newport, Minnesota. He married Gertrude Lorraine Andrews Sept. 6, 1911, in Massachusetts. He was a self-taught engineer and surveyor and worked on railroads throughout the United States. During 1905 and 1906, he worked on the surveyor crew of the Alaska Central Railroad and possibly the Copper River and Northwestern Railway in southeast Alaska. He died November 7, 1941, in Topeka, Kansas.

The Alaska Central Railroad Co. began in 1902. It started at Resurrection Bay (Seward) and tracks were laid to Kerns Creek near the head of Turnagain Arm before it foreclosed in 1909. The Alaska Northern Railroad purchased the tracks and equipment but did not complete any additional line before it was taken over by the new Alaska Railroad Commission. The Copper River and Northwestern Railway ran from Cordova to the Kennecott Mines. [From Alaska's Heritage, J. Antonson, W. Hanable.]