The SS William G. Mather is a retired Great Lakes bulk freighter now restored as a museum ship in Cleveland, Ohio, one of five in the Great Lakes region. She transported cargo such as ore, coal, stone, and grain to ports throughout the Great Lakes, and was nicknamed "The Ship That Built Cleveland" because Cleveland's steel mills were a frequent destination.
Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carriers operating on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Freighters typically have a long, narrow hull, a raised pilothouse, and the engine located at the rear of the ship.
Windoc was the name of two Great Lakes freighters owned by Canadian shipping company N.M. Paterson & Sons Ltd., with the second ship named in memory of the first in 1986. Both ships suffered similar accidents with lift bridges on the Welland Canal.
The Great Lakes Engineering Works (GLEW) was a leading shipbuilding company with a shipyard in Ecorse, Michigan, that operated between 1902 and 1960. Within three years of its formation, it was building fifty percent of the tonnage of all ships in the Great Lakes. During World War II, GLEW was commissioned by Pittsburgh Steamship Company and the U.S. Maritime Commission to build twenty-one ore freighters. Its innovations included the first self-unloader freighter, SS Wyandotte. GLEW is best known for its construction of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
James Martinus Schoonmaker Sr. was a German American colonel in the Union Army in the American Civil War and a vice-president of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. He received the Medal of Honor for gallantry at the Third Battle of Winchester on September 19, 1864.
MV Paul R. Tregurtha is a Great Lakes-based bulk carrier freighter. She is the current Queen of the Lakes, an unofficial but widely recognized title given to the longest vessel active on the Great Lakes. Launched as MV William J. De Lancey, she was the last of the thirteen "thousand footers" to enter service on the Great Lakes, and was also the last Great Lakes vessel built at the American Ship Building Company yard in Lorain, Ohio. The MV Paul R. Tregurtha is the current flagship for the Interlake Steamship Company.
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 National Museum of the Great Lakes is a museum in the Toledo Maritime Center, a heritage location on the banks of the Maumee River on the east side of Toledo, Ohio. Operated by the Great Lakes Historical Society, it celebrates the natural and built heritage of the North American Great Lakes from a U.S. perspective. The museum is most noted as the docking location of a museum Lake freighter, the SS Col. James M. Schoonmaker.
Harry Coulby was an American businessman known as the "Czar of the Great Lakes" for his expertise in managing the Great Lakes shipping fleet of Pickands Mather & Company and the Pittsburgh Steamship Company. After retiring, he served as the first mayor of the newly incorporated town of Wickliffe, Ohio. His former home, Coulallenby, now serves as the city hall of Wickliffe. He chose the design for Great Lakes ore carriers in 1905 that became the standard for the next 65 years, and was elected to the National Maritime Hall of Fame in 1984.
The Pickands Mather Group is an American company which provides shipping of coal and other bulk commodities, and the purchase, sale, and marketing of bulk coal. Founded in 1883 as Pickands Mather & Company, it once had the second largest shipping fleet on the Great Lakes in the 1910s and 1920s. The company was purchased by the Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 1968, which in turn sold it to the Moore-McCormack Resources in 1973. Moore-McCormack sold Pickands Mather's mining interests to Cleveland-Cliffs in 1986. Moore-McCormack then spun off the Interlake Steamship Company to James Barker and Paul R. Tregurtha in 1987. Pickands Mather was sold to a management group in 1992, and continues to operate as a private company.
MV James R. Barker is an American bulk carrier that operates on the upper four North American Great Lakes. Built in 1976 by the American Ship Building Company at Lorain, Ohio, the ship is 1,004 feet (306 m) long, 50 feet (15 m) high and 105 feet (32 m) wide. Like the MV Mesabi Miner, a ship of the same design, it is owned and operated by the Interlake Steamship Company and was named for Interlake’s Chairman of the Board, James R. Barker.
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.
SS William C. Moreland was a 600-foot (180 m) long Great Lakes freighter that ran aground on Sawtooth Reef, Lake Superior on 18 October 1910, only a month after entering service. Visibility was poor due to the smoke from several forest fires, causing the William C. Moreland to ran full steam onto a reef. There were many attempts to salvage the ship, but eventually only the 278-foot (85 m) long stern was salvaged and was used to build the 580-foot (180 m) long Sir Trevor Dawson.
Augustus B. Wolvin was a 560 ft (170 m) long Great Lakes freighter that had a 63-year career on the Great Lakes. Augustus B. Wolvin was a product of the American Shipbuilding Company of Cleveland, Ohio. She was built for the Acme Steamship Company of Duluth, Minnesota.
The H.P. Bope was an American steel-hulled, propeller-driven Great Lakes freighter built in 1907 by the Superior Shipbuilding Company of Superior, Wisconsin for service on the Great Lakes of North America. She was used to transport bulk cargoes such as coal, iron ore and grain.
The John Sherwin was an American steel-hulled, propeller-driven Great Lakes freighter built in 1906 by the West Bay City Shipbuilding Company of Bay City, Michigan for service on the Great Lakes of North America. She was used to transport bulk cargoes such as coal, iron ore and grain. She served from her launching in 1906 to her scrapping in 1974, in Germany.
SS Willis L. King was a 600-foot-long (180 m), steel-hulled, propeller-driven American Great Lakes freighter built in 1911 by the Great Lakes Engineering Works of Ecorse, Michigan. She was scrapped in 1984 in Ashtabula, Ohio. Willis L. King is best known for her collision with the steamer Superior City on August 20, 1920, in Whitefish Bay.
The MV Kaye E. Barker is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by the Interlake Steamship Company. She was originally built as the SS Edward B. Greene, and was later renamed SS Benson Ford before being sold to Interlake and named the Kaye E. Barker. It primarily hauls hematite pellets, stone, and coal across the North American Great Lakes.
United States
Toledo, Ohio 
