Ludington is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat and the largest city in Mason County. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 7,655.
U.S. Route 10 or U.S. Highway 10 (US 10) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway located in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions of the U.S. Unlike most U.S. Highways with "0" as the last digit of its route number, US 10 is not a cross-country highway. US 10 was one of the original long-haul highways, running from Detroit, Michigan, to Seattle, Washington, but then lost much of its length when new Interstate Highways were built on top of its right-of-way.
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 Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
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.
U.S. Highway 10 (US 10) in Wisconsin runs east–west across the central part of the state. It runs from the Prescott Drawbridge over the St. Croix River at Prescott east to the dock in Manitowoc where SS Badger crosses Lake Michigan to Ludington, Michigan. The highway is also designated as the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial Highway for its entire length.
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. She is the last coal-fired passenger vessel operating on the Great Lakes, and was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 20, 2016.
The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad (F&PM) is a defunct railroad which operated in the U.S. state of Michigan between 1857 and 1899. It was one of the three companies which merged to become the Pere Marquette Railway.
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.
US Highway 10 (US 10) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from West Fargo, North Dakota, to the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. The highway enters Michigan on SS Badger, which crosses Lake Michigan between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington. As the highway crosses the state, it is a two-lane undivided highway between Ludington and Farwell and a freeway from Farwell east to the highway's terminus in Bay City. US 10 runs concurrently with US 127 in the Clare area along a section of freeway that includes a welcome center in the median. Outside of the Clare and Midland areas, US 10 runs through rural areas of West and Central Michigan in a section of the Manistee National Forest as well as farmfields.
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.
The second USS Undaunted was laid down as rescue tug ATR-126 on 27 November 1943 at Port Arthur, Texas, by the Gulfport Boiler and Welding Works; reclassified auxiliary ocean tug ATA-199 on 15 May 1944; launched on 22 August 1944; and commissioned on 20 October 1944.
The United States Army tugboat MG Winfield Scott (LT-805) was built by Moss Point Marine, Escatawpa, Mississippi and delivered to the U.S. Army on 29 October 1993. She is named for Major General Winfield Scott.
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.
The SS St. Marys Challenger is a freight-carrying vessel operating on the North American Great Lakes built in 1906. Originally an ore boat, she spent most of her career as a cement carrier when much larger ore boats became common. After a 107-year-long working career as a self-propelled boat, she was converted into a barge and paired with the tug Prentiss Brown as an articulated tug-barge. Before conversion, she was the oldest operating self-propelled lake freighter on the Great Lakes, as well as being one of the last freight-carrying vessels on the Great Lakes to be powered by steam engines.
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.
The SS John Sherman, originally the USRC Sherman or USRC John Sherman was built for the United States Revenue Cutter Service in 1865 before being disposed of by the United States Government in 1872. It was a United States sidewheeler ship initially used as a Revenue Cutter on the Great Lakes of North America before being used for ferry service across Lake Michigan between the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1874 the ship was chartered by Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad to become the first ship used by the company transporting freight and passengers.
Robert C. Pringle, originally named Chequamegon, was a wooden-hulled American tugboat that sank without loss of life on Lake Michigan, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on June 19, 1922, after striking an obstruction.
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, MT Undaunted, ATB Pere Marquette 41, SS Spartan, and MG Winfield Scott (LT-805). Its corporate headquarters is located in Middleburg Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, with additional regional offices in Duluth, Minnesota, and Ludington, Michigan.
United States 
