Ludington is the largest city and county seat of Mason County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 8,076.
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.
Michigan Shipwreck Research Association (MSRA) is an American non-profit corporation based in Holland, Michigan. Formed in 2001 by the former directors of the committee which originally established the Southwest Michigan Underwater Preserve, their stated purpose is to "Preserve Michigan’s Submerged Maritime History." With the discovery of the steamer H. C. Akeley outside the boundaries of the preserve, the group broadened their area of focus and formed MSRA.
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.
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.
HMS Little Belt was the mercantile sloop Friends Good Will, launched in 1811, which the British captured shortly after the start of the War of 1812. The British took her into service as Little Belt, armed her with three guns, and incorporated her into the Royal Navy's Lake Erie fleet. The American schooner Scorpion captured her during the Battle of Lake Erie and the Americans took her into service under her existing name. A storm drove her ashore in October 1813 and a British expeditionary force burnt her in December 1813.
Two ships of the United States Coast Guard or its antecedent services have borne the name Sherman, in honor of John Sherman (1823–1900), who was Secretary of the Treasury during the Hayes administration (1877–1881).
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.
Queen of the Lakes is the unofficial but widely recognized title given to the longest vessel active on the Great Lakes of the United States and Canada. A number of vessels, mostly lake freighters, have been known by the title.
The Great Lakes Patrol was carried out by American naval forces, beginning in 1844, mainly to suppress criminal activity and to protect the maritime border with Canada. A small force of United States Navy, Coast Guard, and Revenue Service ships served in the Great Lakes throughout these operations. Through the decades, they were involved in several incidents with pirates and rebels.
Charles Frederick Conrad was the founder of the LMC Lake Michigan Car Ferry service. He is also known as an industrialist who made environmental test chambers for the aircraft industry, aerospace industry, commercial industry, rocket industry, NASA, and the United States Armed Forces. The headquarters for his companies were in Holland, Michigan, with sales and service branches throughout the world. His formal schooling was as a high school graduate and a correspondence course in refrigeration.
The Mason County Sculpture Trail is a Western and Northern Michigan arts attraction of sculptures in Mason County, Michigan. This county wide outdoor art exhibition is centered on Ludington, Michigan. "What originally started out as a sculpture park on the shores of Lake Michigan in Ludington has now expanded as a regional sculpture trail..." In 2012, it was inaugurated with the idea of using sculptures as a cultural attraction and economic stimulus to Mason County. The sculpture "trail" will eventually include sculptures in Scottville, Custer, Free Soil, and Fountain of Mason County. Nine sculptures are at the Ludington Waterfront Park, two at the Ludington Public Library, one at the Ludington State Park, and one at the Mason County Fairgrounds, just east of the downtown.
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 steel train ferries which operated from Ludington, Michigan which was the largest carferry system in the world.
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 Pere Marquette Lumber Company was a lumber, salt, sawyering and merchandising company of the nineteenth century. Its initial purpose was as an asset management company. The holdings were that of James Ludington, a lumber baron. The business firm was the cradle for the development of the city of Ludington, Michigan. The company was an important component of the lumber boom and bust in the area, supplying lumber for hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures in the Midwest. It was one of the largest producers of salt in the state of Michigan. The company was active from 1869 to 1897 and later sold.
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.
SS Russia was an iron-hulled American Great Lakes package freighter that sank in a Lake Huron gale on April 30, 1909, near DeTour Village, Michigan, with all 22 of her crew and one passenger surviving.
PS Keystone State was a wooden-hulled American paddle steamer in service between 1849 and 1861. She was built in 1848 in Buffalo, New York, by Bidwell & Banta for ship-owner Charles M. Reed of Erie, Pennsylvania, and operated as part of his "Chicago Line". A luxuriously furnished palace steamer, she operated between Buffalo and Chicago, Illinois, while also making stops at various other ports. She was built for the passenger and package freight trade, frequently carrying both wealthy passengers and European immigrants who desired to settle in the Midwestern United States. Due to the Panic of 1857, Keystone State and several other paddle steamers were laid up. When the American Civil War began in 1861; she was refurbished, and put back into service.
