The following ships have used the name SS Pere Marquette;
The Pere Marquette Railway operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and the Canadian province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Buffalo; Toledo; and Chicago. The company was named after Père Jacques Marquette S.J. (1637–1675), a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
Pere Marquette or Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) was a French Jesuit missionary and namesake of Marquette University.
A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as distinguished from "auto ferries" used to transport automobiles. The wharf has a ramp, and a linkspan or "apron", balanced by weights, that connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for tidal or seasonal changes in water level.
SS Milwaukee was a train ferry that served on Lake Michigan. It was launched in 1902 and sank with all hands off Milwaukee on October 22, 1929. Fifty-two men were lost with the vessel.
The Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Company was the Grand Trunk Western Railroad's subsidiary company operating its Lake Michigan railroad car ferry operations between Muskegon, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1905 to 1978. Major railroad companies in Michigan used rail ferry vessels to transport rail cars across Lake Michigan from Michigan's western shore to eastern Wisconsin to avoid rail traffic congestion in Chicago.
SS Badger is a passenger and vehicle ferry in the United States that has been in service on Lake Michigan since 1953. Currently, the ship shuttles between Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a distance of 62 miles (100 km), connecting U.S. Highway 10 (US 10) between those two cities. It is the last coal-fired passenger vessel operating on the Great Lakes, and was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 20, 2016.
SS City of Midland 41 was a train ferry serving the ports of Ludington, Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Kewaunee, Wisconsin, for the Pere Marquette Railway and its successor, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from 1941 until 1988. The ferry was named after the city of Midland, Michigan.
The SS Spartan is a railroad car ferry on Lake Michigan owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) from 1952 through 1979. It alternated routes from Ludington, Michigan, to Milwaukee, Kewaunee, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
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.
Marquette may refer to:
The SS Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 was a train ferry that sank with the loss of between 30 and 38 lives on Lake Erie on December 8, 1909.
The Interlake Steamship Company is an American freight ship company that operates a fleet on the Great Lakes in North America. It is now part of Interlake Maritime Services.
The SS Pere Marquette was the world's first steel train ferry. It sailed on Lake Michigan and provided a service between the ports of Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, for the Pere Marquette Railway from 1897 to 1930. The railway used the name Pere Marquette for many of its ships and ferries, adding a number to the end of the name.
William L. Mercereau was an American design engineer and business manager of train ferries for the Pere Marquette Railway. He supervised their railroad-over-water system of train ferries as the largest carferry system in the world. His home of his fleet of steel carferries for thirty years was Ludington, Michigan. The ferries were each given a specific individual number with the name S.S. Pere Marquette.
Robert Logan was a Scottish naval architect. He was a university graduate of mathematics, science, and engineering. Logan designed and constructed several large ships for various shipbuilding firms worldwide. His first ones were passenger cruise excursion boats and later constructed freighter ships for the American Shipbuilding Company that carried railroad trains across Lake Michigan. He designed the world's first steel train ferry, followed by several more Logan boats that ultimately developed into the world's largest carferry fleet that operated out of Ludington, Michigan.
The SS John Sherman was a United States sidewheeler ship of the 1870s used for ferry service across Lake Michigan. She went between the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. The ship was the first of the commercial ferries used by the Pere Marquette Railroad for transporting freight and passengers. She preceded additional ferries that ultimately became a fleet of ferries for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. It led to the development of the largest train ferry service in the world.
SS Pere Marquette 18 was a steel-hulled Great Lakes train ferry that served on Lake Michigan from her construction in 1902 to her sinking in 1910.
Nine steamships have been named SS Milwaukee.
Interlake Maritime Services is an American shipping firm that was created in December 2020 after Interlake Steamship Company purchased the assets of Pere Marquette Shipping Company and Lake Michigan Car Ferry Company, including the car ferry SS Badger, the articulated tug-barge Undaunted-Pere Marquette 41. Its corporate headquarters is located in Middleburg Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, with additional regional offices in Duluth, Minnesota, and Ludington, Michigan.