Arnold Transit Company is a ferry boat company serving Mackinac Island in Michigan for over 140 years. From 2016 to 2024 Arnold Line's assets including the boats and docks were operated and branded as Star Line Ferry (later Mackinac Island Ferry Company). Since 2024 it has been operated by Hoffman Marine, part of Hoffman Family of Companies.
Arnold Transit Company was started in 1878 by George Arnold (1846–1921). Coal-fire steamboats transported passengers and goods for almost 70 years to various Michigan ports and islands. [1] Mrs. Arnold brought in Otto Lang and Prentiss Brown to manage the business.
After World War II, Arnold Transit Company, now owned by Lang and Brown, started to add modern diesel boats to its fleet. In June 1946, Arnold, which ran from Mackinaw City to Mackinac, merged with Island Transportation Company which ran a St. Ignace to Mackinac Island route. In 1984, a long-standing competitor, the Mackinac Transportation Company, ended operations. In 1987, the first of three catamaran ferries was added to the Arnold Line fleet.
In 2010, after decades of ownership, the Brown family announced the sale of Arnold Transit parent company Union Terminal Piers to James Wynn. [2] In 2014, the company suffered financially and the investment group backing Wynn foreclosed. The foreclosure resulted in the public auction of two catamarans. Competitor Star Line Mackinac Island Ferry Service purchased one of the Catamarans, MV Mackinac Express, Pictured Rocks Cruises purchased MV Island Express and was renamed MV Pictured Rocks Express, MV Straits Express, is now[ when? ] in New York City being used as a commuter ferry for Hornblower Cruises. Wynn was removed as president and from his position on the board of directors, and operations were taken over by the original investment group out of Cincinnati, Ohio. [3] [4]
In September 2015, an agreement was reached to ensure the company's continued access between its Mackinac Island dock and Main Street, which had been lost in a land deal engineered by Wynn. [5]
In November 2016, competitor Star Line Mackinac Island Ferry announced it would be purchasing the majority of the assets of Arnold Transit Company, including boats, boatyard, its docks and name. The Arnold assets were incorporated into the Star Line fleet for the 2017 season. [6] Star Line renamed itself Mackinac Island Ferry Company in 2022. [7]
In September, 2024, Hoffman Marine, part of Hoffman Family of Companies, acquired Mackinac Island Ferry Company and rebranded as Arnold Transit. [8] [9]
The Mackinac Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. It spans the Straits of Mackinac, a body of water connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, two of the Great Lakes. Opened in 1957, the 26,372-foot-long bridge is the world's 27th-longest main span and is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. The Mackinac Bridge is part of Interstate 75 (I-75) and carries the Lake Michigan and Huron components of the Great Lakes Circle Tour across the straits; it is also a segment of the U.S. North Country National Scenic Trail. The bridge connects the city of St. Ignace to the north with the village of Mackinaw City to the south.
A ferry is a boat that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus.
Mackinac Island is an island and resort area, covering 4.35 square miles (11.3 km2) in land area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the island in Odawa is Michilimackinac and "Mitchimakinak" in Ojibwemowin, meaning "Great Turtle". It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was long home to an Odawa settlement and previous indigenous cultures before European colonization began in the 17th century. It was a strategic center of the fur trade around the Great Lakes. Based on a former trading post, Fort Mackinac was constructed on the island by the British during the American Revolutionary War. It was the site of two battles during the War of 1812 before the northern border was settled and the US gained this island in its territory.
Mackinac County is a county in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,834. The county seat is St. Ignace. Formerly known as Michilimackinac County, in 1818 it was one of the first counties of the Michigan Territory, as it had long been a center of French and British colonial fur trading, a Catholic church and Protestant mission, and associated settlement.
St. Ignace is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Mackinac County. The city had a population of 2,306 at the 2020 census. St. Ignace Township is located just to the north of the city; the two are administered separately.
Mackinaw City is a village at the northernmost point of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, United States. Divided between Cheboygan and Emmet counties, Mackinaw City is located at the southern end of the Mackinac Bridge, which carries Interstate 75 over the Straits of Mackinac to St. Ignace, in the Upper Peninsula. Mackinaw City and St. Ignace also serve as access points for ferries to and from Mackinac Island. For these reasons, Mackinaw City is considered one of Michigan's most popular tourist attractions.
The Straits of Mackinac are the short waterways between the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, traversed by the Mackinac Bridge. The main strait is 3+1⁄2 miles wide with a maximum depth of 295 feet, and connects the Great Lakes of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Given the large size and configuration of the straits, hydrologically, the two connected lakes are one body of water, studied as Lake Michigan–Huron. Historically, the native Odawa people called the region around the Straits Michilimackinac.
Northern Michigan, also known as Northern Lower Michigan, is a region of the U.S. state of Michigan. A popular tourist destination, it is home to several small- to medium-sized cities, extensive state and national forests, lakes and rivers, and a large portion of Great Lakes shoreline. The region has a significant seasonal population much like other regions that depend on tourism as their main industry. Northern Lower Michigan is distinct from the more northerly Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, which are also located in "northern" Michigan. In the northernmost 21 counties in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the total population of the region is 506,658 people.
The buildings of the St Helena Light complex are the sole surviving structures on St. Helena Island, in Mackinac County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The lighthouse on the St. Helena Island's southeastern point was built in 1872-1873 and went into operation in September 1873. It became one of a series of lighthouses that guided vessels through the Straits of Mackinac, past a dangerous shoal that extends from the island.
Chief Wawatam was a coal-fired steel ship that was based, for most of its working life, in St. Ignace, Michigan. The vessel was named after a distinguished Ojibwa chief of the 1760s. In initial revenue service, the Chief Wawatam served as a train ferry, passenger ferry and icebreaker that operated year-round at the Straits of Mackinac between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, Michigan. During the winter months, it sometimes took many hours to cross the five-mile-wide Straits, and Chief Wawatam was fitted with complete passenger hospitality spaces.
Vacationland was an American double-ended automobile ferry, built by Great Lakes Engineering Works for the Michigan State Highway Department. She was built to operate the route from St. Ignace to Mackinaw City through the Straits of Mackinac year-round, and was equipped with powerful engines and a reinforced hull to break through heavy ice. Vacationland was launched in 1951, and entered service in 1952. She was the final ferry built for the St. Ignace–Mackinaw City service, which was replaced by the Mackinac Bridge in 1957.
The history of commercial passenger shipping on the Great Lakes is long but uneven. It reached its zenith between the mid-19th century and the 1950s. As early as 1844, palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the Great Lakes. By 1900, fleets of relatively luxurious passenger steamers plied the waters of the lower lakes, especially the major industrial centres of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto.
The Mackinac Transportation Company was a train ferry service that shuttled railroad cars across the Straits of Mackinac from 1881 until 1984. It was best known as the owner and operator, from 1911 until 1984, of the SS Chief Wawatam, an icebreaking train ferry.
Mackinac Island Ferry Company is a ferry boat company serving Mackinac Island in Michigan. The company has a dock at Mackinaw City and two at St. Ignace.
Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry is one of two ferry companies serving Mackinac Island, Michigan. The company has docks in Mackinaw City and St. Ignace. Shepler's provides ferry and freight service to Mackinac Island.
Due to its unique geography, being made of two peninsulas surrounded by the Great Lakes, Michigan has depended on many ferries for connections to transport people, vehicles and trade. The most famous modern ferries are those which carry people and goods across the Straits of Mackinac to the car-free Mackinac Island but before the Mackinac Bridge was built, large numbers of ferries carried people and cars between the two peninsulas. Other ferries continue to provide transportation to small islands and across the Detroit River to Canada. Ferries once provided transport to island parks for city dwellers. The state's only national park, Isle Royale cannot be reached by road and is normally accessed by ferry. The largest ferries in Michigan are the car ferries which cross Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. One of these, the SS Badger is one of the last remaining coal steamers on the Great Lakes and serves as a section of US Highway 10 (US 10). The Badger is also the largest ferry in Michigan, capable of carrying 600 passengers and 180 autos.
Wawatam Lighthouse is an automated, modern lighthouse that guards the harbor of St. Ignace, Michigan, in the Straits of Mackinac. Originally completely nonfunctional, it was erected in 1998 by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) near Monroe, Michigan as an iconic roadside attraction at a welcome center that greeted northbound drivers on Interstate 75 (I-75). After serving in this capacity for six years, the structure was threatened in 2004 when MDOT decided to rebuild the welcome center and demolish the tower.
East Moran Bay is a small, historic harbor in the Straits of Mackinac adjacent to the city of St. Ignace in the U.S. state of Michigan. The harbor is used as a commercial port for Star Line Ferry and Shepler's Ferry ferry boats from St. Ignace to Mackinac Island, a tourist center of the Straits of Mackinac. The bay and its harbor are guarded by the Wawatam Lighthouse.
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