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.
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.
The Owen Sound Transportation Company, Limited was the forerunner of the enterprise that currently operates the vehicle and passenger ferry - M.S. Chi-Cheemaun - between Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula, and South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island. For updated information, see the article on the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun.
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.
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 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.
SS Keewatin is a passenger liner which once traveled between Port Arthur/Fort William on Lake Superior and Port McNicoll on Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. She carried passengers between these ports for the Canadian Pacific Railway's Great Lakes steamship service. Keewatin also carried packaged freight goods for the railway at these ports.
The first USS Theodore Roosevelt (ID-1478) was a United States Navy troop transport in commission from 1918 to 1919.
The SS Christopher Columbus was an American excursion liner on the Great Lakes, in service between 1893 and 1933. She was the only whaleback ship ever built for passenger service. The ship was designed by Alexander McDougall, the developer and promoter of the whaleback design.
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.
The West India Fruit and Steamship Company operated a railcar ferry service between the Port of Palm Beach, Florida, and Havana, Cuba, from shortly after World War II until deteriorating relations between the United States and Cuba culminated in the United States embargo against Cuba. The company offered six of its ferries for sale in June 1961, citing the fact that "trade had dwindled to the vanishing point" and service ceased in August 1961.
SS Aquarama was built as Marine Star, one of five breakbulk cargo ships of the United States Maritime Commission (USMC) type C4-S-B5 having that C4 design variant. The ship was delivered to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) for operation in July 1945 just before the end of World War II and was operated until August 1946 by WSA's agent American Hawaiian SS Company. From September 1947 the ship was laid up except for brief periods in the James River.
SS Aleutian was a passenger ship in North American coastal service. Built in 1899 for the Ward Line as SS Havana, she would later serve the building of the Panama Canal as SS Panama and ultimately enter Alaskan service as SS Aleutian.
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 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 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.
The SS Muskegon was a wooden hulled American passenger and package freight vessel that burned down on October 6, 1910 off the coast of Michigan City, Indiana in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States while unloading a cargo of sand. On April 26, 1989 the remains of the Muskegon were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The City of Muskegon was a steel-hulled sidewheel package and passenger steamer, built in 1881 for service on the Great Lakes, which was wrecked early on Tuesday 28 October 1919 when it struck a pier at Muskegon, Michigan, at 0430 hrs., in a 60 mph gale, sinking in a period estimated between four and ten minutes. Nine crew and six passengers were killed. There are conflicting sources on the number on board, however. One account listed 37 passengers and a crew of 35.
United States
