SS City of Milwaukee

Last updated
SS City of Milwaukee.jpg
SS City of Milwaukee at Elberta, Michigan in 1990
History
Flag of the United States.svg United States
NameSS City of Milwaukee
OwnerSociety for the Preservation of the SS City of Milwaukee
Operator
RouteMuskegon-Milwaukee; Elberta(Frankfort)-Kewaunee/Manitowoc
Builder Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company
Yard numberHull number 261
LaunchedNovember 25, 1930
ChristenedNovember 25, 1930
CompletedJanuary 15, 1931
Out of serviceAugust 9, 1981
Identification
Status Museum ship
General characteristics
Tonnage2942
Length354 ft (107.9 m) (LPP)
Beam56 ft (17.1 m)
Installed powerSteam
PropulsionTwo triple-expansion steam engines
Speed14.5 knots (26.9 km/h)
Capacity30-32 rail cars
Crew52
City of Milwaukee (Great Lakes Car Ferry)
USA Michigan location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Manistee, Michigan
Coordinates 44°15′34″N86°18′54″W / 44.25944°N 86.31500°W / 44.25944; -86.31500
NRHP reference No. 90002221 [1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP14 December 1990
Designated NHL14 December 1990 [2]

SS City of Milwaukee is a Great Lakes railroad car ferry that once plied Lake Michigan, often between Muskegon, Michigan and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was built in 1931 for the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Company and is the only pre-1940s ship of this type to survive. She now serves as a museum ship, bed and breakfast, and event venue on the waterfront of Manistee Lake in Manistee, Michigan. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. [2]

Contents

Description

The City of Milwaukee is a steel-hulled ship with a carrying capacity of 2830 fully loaded rail cars. She was powered by four Scotch marine boilers, producing 185 psi (1,280 kPa) of pressure. The boilers were fueled by coal until 1947, when the COM was converted to No.5 (Bunker C) fuel oil, and was routinely topped off with 1,200 US gallons (4,500 L) of it. Two of the four boilers powered the two triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines rated at 1,350 horsepower (1,010 kW) each, for a combined horsepower of 2,700 hp (2,000 kW), while the third powered the generator and other steam-powered equipment on board, and the fourth would stay idle, switching off with the others. The two engines drove the twin cast-steel 4-bladed propellers; each at 12 ft (3.7 m) in diameter and over 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg). She has a relatively shallow draft, determined in part because ships carrying railroad vehicles needed to have a flat deck. The hull is divided into eight compartments. Listed in order from bow to stern is the chain locker, hold No.1, hold No.2, boiler room, engine room, flicker (crew quarters), shaft alley and lastly the steering engine room. The car deck is mostly covered and sheltered on the sides by the hull. There are four pairs of rails, with extra rails outside each pair to which the cars being carried were anchored by chains. The engineering and galley crew quarters, galley, passenger dining room, crew mess, and passenger staterooms are located on the deck directly above the cardeck. The deck above the passenger deck is the Texas deck, which housed the Captain's and Mate's quarters, as well as some lookouts and watchmen. Above the Texas deck is the pilot house, where main navigation of the vessel took place. There is also a small pilot house on the stern that is used for docking the vessel. [3]

City of Milwaukee at berth in Manistee CityOfMilwaukee.jpg
City of Milwaukee at berth in Manistee

The ship was built in 1930 and launched in 1931 at Manitowoc, Wisconsin to replace SS Milwaukee, which sank with all hands on October 22, 1929, during a gale. Car ferry service had been introduced to the Great Lakes in 1892, and there were many as 14 vessels operating on the lakes at the system's peak. These specialized vessels were capable of carrying up to 34 railroad cars across the often stormy and ice-packed lakes at any time of year. [3] City of Milwaukee sailed for the Grand Trunk until 1978 when, as the last of their fleet of three to be sailing, she was chartered to the Ann Arbor Railroad. She sailed for this road until 1982, when she was retired permanently. She is currently preserved in Manistee, Michigan as a National Historic Landmark Museum, owned by the Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee, a non-profit organization. In addition to being a museum to tour, she is also operated seasonally as a bed and breakfast, and every October she is transformed into Manistee's Ghost Ship, where nearly the entire ship is turned into a haunted attraction in order to raise funds. She is the last unmodified traditional railroad car ferry afloat upon the lakes, still with her triple expansion steam engine, original woodwork and brass fixtures.

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Eureka</i> (ferryboat)

Eureka is a side-wheel paddle steamboat, built in 1890, which is now preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California. Originally named Ukiah to commemorate the railway's recent extension into the City of Ukiah, the boat was built by the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad Company at their Tiburon yard. Eureka has been designated a National Historic Landmark and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 24, 1973.

USS <i>Sable</i> US Navy training ship in service 1943-1945

USS Sable (IX-81) was a United States Navy training ship during World War II, originally built as the passenger ship Greater Buffalo, a sidewheel excursion steamboat. She was purchased by the Navy in 1942 and converted to a training aircraft carrier to be used on the Great Lakes. She lacked a hangar deck, elevators, or armament and was not a true warship, but she provided advanced training of naval aviators in carrier takeoffs and landings.

SS <i>Milwaukee</i> (1902) Great lakes train ferry that foundered in a storm

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.

SS <i>Chief Wawatam</i> Steel ship based in Michigan

Chief Wawatam was a coal-fired steel ship that was based, for most of its 1911–1984 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.

SS <i>Badger</i> Passenger and vehicle ferry in the United States

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.

<i>Ticonderoga</i> (steamboat) Steamboat

The steamboat Ticonderoga is one of two remaining side-paddle-wheel passenger steamers with a vertical beam engine of the type that provided freight and passenger service on America's bays, lakes and rivers from the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries. Commissioned by the Champlain Transportation Company, Ticonderoga was built in 1906 at the Shelburne Shipyard in Shelburne, Vermont on Lake Champlain.

SS <i>William A. Irvin</i>

SS William A. Irvin is a lake freighter, named for William A. Irvin, that sailed as a bulk freighter on the Great Lakes as part US Steel's lake fleet. She was flagship of the company fleet from her launch in the depths of the Great Depression in 1938 until 1975 and then was a general workhorse of the fleet until her retirement in 1978.

SS <i>City of Midland 41</i>

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.

SS <i>Milwaukee Clipper</i>

SS Milwaukee Clipper, also known as SS Clipper, and formerly as SS Juniata, is a retired passenger ship and automobile ferry that sailed under two configurations and traveled on all of the Great Lakes except Lake Ontario. The vessel is now docked in Muskegon, Michigan.

<i>Bonnington</i> (sternwheeler)

Bonnington was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia from 1911 to 1931. Bonnington and two sisterships were the largest sternwheelers ever built in British Columbia. Bonnington was partially dismantled in the 1950s, and later sank, making the vessel the largest freshwater wreck site in British Columbia.

<i>Lone Star</i> (towboat)

Lone Star is a wooden hull, steam-powered stern-wheeled towboat in LeClaire, Iowa, United States. She is dry docked and on display at the Buffalo Bill Museum in LeClaire. Built in 1868, she is the oldest of three surviving steam-powered towboats, and the only one with a wooden hull. She was declared a National Historic Landmark on 20 December 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Lakes passenger steamers</span> Aspect of history

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.

SS <i>Ste. Claire</i>

SS Ste. Claire is a steamer located in Detroit, Michigan. Built in 1910, she was one of the last propeller-driven excursion steamers to be operated on the Great Lakes. She was declared a US National Historic Landmark in 1992. In 2018, a devastating fire destroyed the upper decks, leaving only the steel structure.

<i>Baltimore</i> (tug) Steam-powered tugboat

Baltimore is a preserved steam-powered tugboat, built in 1906 by the Skinner Shipbuilding Company of Baltimore, Maryland. She is formerly the oldest operating steam tugboat in the United States, but at present does not hold an operating license issued by the US Coast Guard, so is unable to leave her dock at the Baltimore Museum of Industry on Key Highway, Baltimore. Her hull is not capable of operating on open water. Baltimore was built and operated as a harbor inspection tug, capable of acting as a municipal tugboat for city barges, as well as an official welcoming vessel and VIP launch, an auxiliary fireboat, and as a light icebreaker.

<i>R. J. Hackett</i> (steamer) Historic shipwreck in Lake Michigan

R. J. Hackett was a steamer built in 1869. When first launched, the ship's wide cross-section and long midships hold were unconventional, but the design's advantages in moving cargo through the inland lakes spawned many imitators. The Hackett is recognized as the first Great Lakes freighter, a vessel type that has dominated Great Lakes shipping for over 100 years. In 1905, the Hackett caught fire and sank on Whaleback Shoal in Green Bay, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) southeast of the Cedar River in Menominee County, Michigan. The wreck site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

SS <i>Pere Marquette</i> Lake Michigan train ferry

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.

SS <i>Lakeland</i> Steel ship wrecked in Lake Michigan

The SS Lakeland was an early steel-hulled Great Lakes freighter that sank on December 3, 1924, into 205 feet (62 m) of water on Lake Michigan near Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin, United States, after she sprang a leak. On July 7, 2015, the wreck of the Lakeland was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

SS <i>Atlanta</i> Wooden hulled Great Lakes steamer

The SS Atlanta was a wooden hulled Great Lakes steamer that sank in Lake Michigan off the coast of Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, United States, after a failed attempt of her being towed to shore ultimately killing 5 out of her 7 crew members on board. Her wreckage still remains at the bottom of the lake, and on November 6, 2017, the wreck of the Atlanta was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

SS <i>Pere Marquette 18</i> 1902 Great Lakes train ferry

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. 1 2 "City of Milwaukee (Great Lakes Car Ferry)". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2012-10-06. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  3. 1 2 Herd, William. "National Historic Landmark nomination S.S. City of Milwaukee" (pdf). National Park Service. and Herd, William. "Associated Photos" (pdf). National Park Service.