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Autos Across Mackinac:
Work on the Mackinaw City dock expansion proceeded rapidly, so that by January 1938, a wall of field stone gathered from all around town had been built parallel to, and 350 feet south of, the ferry causeway. The rock extended out to a water depth of 16 feet, where it turned north to meet the existing dock structure. The area between was filled with sand, rock, and dredge spoils, making a solid peninsula extending out from the shore to deep water. Ray Durocher of DeTour and Ray Majestic of Cheboygan won the contract to do the fill work, and they felt the job would be completed by the spring sailing season. They had hired more than 50 truck drivers from all over Northern Michigan to haul stone for the work, which would continue until the ice melted and regular dredging could begin.
FIRST OF A PERE Unlike the Ann Arbor Railroad, which was built with a car ferry connection in mind, the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad was built primarily to haul lumber from the area around what is today Ludington to Toledo. The town of Ludington was originally named "Pere Marquette" for the French missionary from St. Ignace. Father Marquette died near there while returning from his travels and was originally buried on the shore of the lake that bears his name. Pere Marquette Lake serves as the community's natural harbor, connected to Lake Michigan by a dredged channel, much like Lake Betsie in Frankfort. But by the time the rail line reached the shore of Lake Michigan in 1874, the town of Pere Marquette had been renamed for a local lumber baron.
While other lines entered the car ferry business, these five vessels handled the railroad's crosslake traffic. Meanwhile, the railroad watched. Finally, in December 1895, it ordered a steel car ferry to be designed by Robert Logan, a noted Cleveland naval architect. The ship was to be 337 feet long with two propellers aft, powered by compound engines. Like the Straits ferries and the early Ann Arbor boats, she was originally to have a bow propeller for ice work. The bow screw was ultimately eliminated from the plans when the Ann Arbor's experience proved it wasn't needed. Named simply the Pere Marquette when launched by F.B. Wheeler & Company of Bay City in December 1896, she was a true pioneer. Her design of twin screws, four tracks on the main deck, passenger and licensed crew cabins on the upper deck, with two stacks fore and aft, was used by nearly every other lake ferry to follow. Unlicensed crewmembers were lodged below the stern of the cardeck in a room that soon came to be called the "flicker," apparently because of the single flickering 25-watt bulb used for illumination. The ferry had the same track layout as the Ann Arbor boats that preceded her, allowing her to land at the same slips, and she was thus able to enter service between Ludington and Manitowoc on the night of February 16 and 17, 1897. Soon after the new ferry was received, the F&PM No. 1 was sold. A success from the start, the Pere Marquette had a relatively uneventful career that spanned 38 years. In 1900, the F&PM merged with two other rail lines to form the Pere Marquette Railroad. The other lines also operated a car ferry, the wooden Shenango No. 2 that had been renamed Muskegon. For awhile, that ship ran between Muskegon and Milwaukee, but was soon moved to join the Pere Marquette out of Ludington. After the merger, in 1901, the line renamed all of its fleet. The remaining break-bulk boats became Pere Marquette 2, 3, 4, and 5, while the Muskegon became Pere Marquette 16. Plans originally called for the Pere Marquette to become Pere Marquette 15, and often her crews called her "The 15." But the name change wasn't actually made until 1924. The railroad adopted a ship numbering system like they used for locomotives. Their break-bulk fleet started at "1" and went up. The Lake Michigan car ferries started up from "15." The line also owned several ferries on the Detroit River. These were numbered downward starting at "14." Whatever her name, Pere Marquette 16, like Ann Arbor No. 4, seemed to have more than her share of bad luck, much of it involving insufficient power to keep her bow into storms. On several occasions she fell off into troughs of the waves and, while broadside to the seas, her loosened cargoes smashed equipment and steam lines. Once she was intentionally sunk just off Ludington when she was swamped, grounded, and her back broken. The scuttling kept her from being a total loss. She also lost steering several times in her career, smashing other vessels and doing considerable damage to things on shore near where she tried to land. Despite all the accidents, traffic out of Ludington continued to grow, and the Pere Marquette soon ordered four more steel ferries, also designed by Robert Logan. American Shipbuilding's Globe Iron Works of Cleveland launched the first, the Pere Marquette 17, as their hull No. 406 in 1901. She was 338 feet by 56 feet by 19.5 feet in dimensions. Unlike her Logan designed predecessor, she had triple expansion engines, 19" + 31" + 52-1/2" x 36" powered by four Scotch boilers of 13'8" x 12' generating 175 pounds of steam pressure for 2,300 horsepower. She could carry 30 rail cars on four tracks, and had a full-length passenger cabin with more extensive passenger facilities than the older ship. Officially numbered US 150906, she was registered at 2,775 gross tons. The next ship, Pere Marquette 18 (I), (US 150972), was launched from the same place the following year. At 2,909 gross tons, she was slightly larger than the 17 as she had more passenger space. Pere Marquette 19 was launched from Lorain, Ohio, in October 1903 and was an almost duplicate of the 17, but, at 2,626 gross tons, had no passenger cabins. Pere Marquette 20 was identical to the 19 but was, again, built in Cleveland, making the 19 and 20 the first actual sister ships in the fleet. The 19 was American Shipbuilding's hull No. 418 (US 200459), and the 20 was hull No. 419 (US 200531). Both ships were 338 feet x 56 feet x 19.5 feet, powered by two triple expansion engines of 19" + 31" + 52" x 36". They had four Scotch 13'9" x 12' boilers which generated 175 pounds of pressure, meaning they operated with 2,280 horsepower. Again, each ferry carried 30 rail cars on four tracks. While the 19 was finished in the fall, the 20 was not completed until late in the year of 1903, and thus had to battle ice all the way from the shipyard to Ludington. The trip took her nearly two weeks, but she was put into service with her sisters almost immediately. It would be one of the worst winters on the lake and, for the entire month of February 1904, the lake was frozen solid, shore to shore. Soon after the new boats arrived, much of the break-bulk fleet and the wooden Pere Marquette 16 were sold. For the next 15 years, the five steel ferries provided service, with only several accidents and one major disaster. On May 29, 1905, the Pere Marquette 20 struck a scow while leaving Milwaukee in a fog, sinking the scow with no loss of life. On November 21, 1906, the 17 was headed to Manitowoc when she encountered a tremendous storm. While she made port safely, she required a tug to help her land in the wind. As the tug and ferry passed through a bridge en route to the ferry slip, the wind pushed the ferry into the tug, which in turn crushed a fishing tug moored by the bridge, sinking her. The bridge also suffered several hundred dollars damage. The accident PM 17 suffered December 30, 1908, was much worse. Arriving in Ludington after a crossing from Manitowoc, she was navigating in 30-mile-perhour winds and a driving rain from astern. Far off course, she struck the beach about seven miles north of the harbor entrance and was driven by the waves to a point only about 800 feet off shore. The captain ordered her scuttled so she wouldn't break apart in the seas, and compartments around the engine room were intentionally flooded, while watertight bulkheads kept the boilers and engines dry. Unfortunately, she was so far onto the beach, there was thought of abandoning her to the underwriters. Finally, a pair of tugs were able to pull her free the following month. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. The Pere Marquette 17 was also present when the line suffered the worst accident in its history. But the accident happened to her sister ship, Pere Marquette 18 (I). The 18 had the best passenger accommodations of the fleet, and so for several seasons she was chartered for excursions out of Chicago in the summer months. She was doing that again in 1910. Following Labor Day, she was returned to Ludington, where the railroad checked her out and did minor work to refit her as a freight handling car ferry. On September 8, 1910, about 11:40 p.m., she left on her first trip, headed for Milwaukee. Somewhere near midlake, around 3 a.m., an oiler went to the flicker to oil some bearings on the propeller shafts. There he discovered that, for some reason, the ship was taking a great deal of water, with about seven feet already in the aft compartment. He immediately reported the situation, and upon inspection, a broken deadlight* was found. The crew sealed the opening and started the pumps, but the flooding only increased. With the stern settling noticeably, more deadlights were submerged and broken, and even more water flooded in. The crew jettisoned loaded rail cars to lighten the vessel, and between nine and 15 cars were shoved over the stern. They also flooded some forward compartments in an effort to equalize the weight fore and aft. *A deadlight is a strong plate fastened over a ship's porthole in stormy weather. Captain Peter Kilty ordered the ship's wheelsman to steer directly for the nearest Wisconsin shore, and the purser began sending CQD* distress signals on the radio about 4:30 a.m. By 6:30, the nearest ship, the PM 17 was spotted as they sailed about 20 miles off Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Even then, the crew thought they might make port. The pumps were working and the situation didn't seem to be getting much worse. No one had ordered anyone to abandon ship or even put on life jackets. *CQD was replaced later by SOS. Around 7:15, the 17 came along the 18's starboard side, but since it was to windward, she couldn't get close enough to make fast or take off any passengers or crew. She put about to approach from the port side, but as she repositioned, suddenly the 18 took an enormous amount of water and sunk almost immediately by the stern. Captain Kilty was last seen standing on the flying bridge as it slipped beneath the waves. The enormous build up of air pressure blew out the bow, hurling debris high into the air. In moments, the PM 18 was gone. The 17 immediately launched boats to pick up survivors, but the high seas smashed one boat against her own side, killing two crewmembers. The other boats picked up about 35 people, most of whom had been sucked down by the sinking ship but had regained the surface. Still, the accident claimed 27 to 29 lives, as no one knew exactly how many people had been on board. There was a full investigation, but since all the 18's officers had been lost, no conclusive reason was ever found for the sinking. The speed that it sank, however, seemed to indicate something needed to be done to increase buoyancy on all the Lake Michigan ferries. Representatives of each operating company met and decided to equip each new boat with seagates across the stern. All of the existing ferries were similarly retrofitted. The Pere Marquette immediately ordered a replacement boat, and the Pere Marquette 18 (II) was launched in record time from a yard in Chicago, the only ferry to ever be built there. Within about 90 days, the new ship was ready for service in January 1911. The winter of 1911-12 was also difficult for the ferries. On December 10, 1911, the 20 went aground in a storm off Milwaukee, and seemed to be in danger of breaking up. Her captain ordered her scuttled, and the Coast Guard took off 16 crewmembers. But the captain and 20 others remained on board. On December 14, PM 17 arrived and all 28 railcars were transferred from the strickened ferry. With the help of two tugs, the 17 was then able to work the lightened PM 20 free. The winters of 1918, 1919, and 1920 were also bad. On March 8, 1920, the new PM 18 (II) was leading the old Pere Marquette 3 through the ice toward Ludington when she became stuck. Soon, both ships were frozen in. The PM 17 came out to try to free them, but the pressure on the PM 3's hull was so great that the ship was crushed and slowly sank in the ice. Her passengers walked to the nearby PM 18 (II) and safety. Then in 1923, the PM 17 collided head on with the Pere Marquette 4 in a thick fog about 23 miles off Milwaukee. While the car ferry's steel bow had only slight damage, the PM 4 was heavily smashed, though mostly above the waterline. The car ferry towed her into port safely, but she was never rebuilt. That same year, the railroad ordered another pair of ferries to handle ever-increasing traffic. The Pere Marquette 21 and PM 22 were built by Manitowoc Shipbuilding and entered service in 1924. They were slightly larger and more powerful than the earlier Logan designed boats and set the design for four subsequent Lake Michigan car ferries. In 1928, PM 18 (II) managed to go aground twice. The first time, off Manitowoc in a blinding snow storm, she was rescued by PM 17, which, after grounding herself, was able to work free. She then removed 14 cars off the 18 (II)'s center tracks, lightening her enough that she could also work free. The second time, near Milwaukee, PM 18 (II) tore a large hole in her hull, flooding the engine room. This time, PM 20 took off most of her load, and sacks of cement were used to plug the hole so the ferry could be refloated after a tarp had been passed under the hull. Sixty-five hull plates were replaced at the Manitowoc shipyard. In the days just prior to the Depression, the Pere Marquette Railroad and its car ferries came under control of the Van Sweringen brothers, Cleveland business tycoons who consolidated a number of railroad holdings throughout the Midwest. Merged into the brothers' Chesapeake and Ohio Railway system, the car ferries suddenly found that much more coal traffic was available. They also experienced a large increase in tourist and automobile traffic. Since only the PM 17 and 18 (II) had adequate passenger cabins, and since coal traffic was greatly increasing, the railroad again turned to Manitowoc Shipbuilding and ordered two additional car ferries. The new boats were originally to be named Pere Marquette 23 and 24, but instead were named for communities that the railroad severed. Since instead of triple expansion engines, they were powered by turbo-electric drive, a new numbering series, typical of railroads, was also instituted. The boats became City of Saginaw 31 and City of Flint 32. Like the other boats, most employees simply referred to them by their numbers. Much larger, more powerful, and much faster than the older ferries, the two new boats might have become the prototypes for up to a half-dozen more ships, but the Depression interrupted the railroad's expansion plans. As their empire collapsed, the Van Sweringens retrenched, ultimately losing control of the Pere Marquette and their other holdings. Rail and ferry traffic dwindled, and in the depths of the depression, several of the car ferries became surplus. The original Logan ferry, Pere Marquette 15, was laid up in 1930. In 1935, she was broken up in Manitowoc, although the shipyard retained many of her parts for use by other boats in the fleet. With no passenger accommodations, the PM 19 and 20 were also poorly suited for service. They spent much of the 1930s tied to the dock in Ludington, with the 20 serving as a spare parts warehouse for her sisters. Being the oldest remaining ferry, the PM 17 was also used very lightly while the line relied on the newer ships, with better passenger accommodations, for service. Therefore, in 1938, when the State of Michigan again needed to expand the Straits ferry fleet, the Pere Marquette Railroad in Ludington had several vessels available for state decision-makers to choose from. PERE MARQUETTE 20 After conferring with railroad officials in Cleveland and several visits to Ludington to inspect the boats available, Captain Ed Doner chose the Pere Marquette 20. The vessel he chose looked nothing like the trim white ferries at the Straits he was used to. After years of neglect, paint had peeled from the 20's cabins, long rust stains streaked her hull, and the cardeck was deeply covered in droppings from birds, which had nested inside the open overhead. Doner apparently based his choice on the asking price, $60,000, and the ship's size, though she probably had inadequate passenger facilities. Overnight cabins were not needed for passengers on the Straits crossing, anyway, only a lounge/sitting room. Doner felt much of the superstructure might have to be rebuilt to upgrade the ship, and as early as January, he asked the nearest yard, Manitowoc Shipbuilding, to submit proposals for the modification work to be done. He also asked the Steamboat Inspectors from the Michigan office of the U.S. Department of Commerce to check the boat over. Even as their report was being prepared, on February 8, the State Administrative Board acted to approve the purchase. In quick succession, the board sent the Governor a list of things to do to finish the deal, and Commissioner Murray Van Wagoner signed a purchase contract with the railroad. It may have been a mistake. The inspectors' report, forwarded to the state by the Pere Marquette, showed almost $25,000 in emergency repairs needed right away. To make them, the ship was authorized to proceed only as far as the nearest shipyard. Manitowoc was right across the lake, so a Pere Marquette crew began unloading the shipload of parts and materials and cleaning out the bird droppings. It took nearly a month to complete the task, and it took almost that long for Michigan to send the $60,000 payment. The State, meanwhile, advertised for bids to do the actual conversion work, and shipyards all around the lakes were invited. Even the Cheboygan Snowplow and Boiler Company asked for a copy of the specifications, but having no experience, they were excluded from bidding. To oversee the conversion, and the costs involved, Commissioner Van Wagoner appointed a committee headed by State Finance Director L. B. Reid. Other members included Captain Doner, several highway department bridge engineers, and a marine architect selected by the rest of the committee. Bid specifications were released March 8, with bids to be received by March 15, and the contract to be awarded March 21. Bidders were asked to submit two proposals: One to take the ship from Manitowoc to their yard and do the work, the other to do the work after a State crew delivered it. It turned out two costs weren't needed. Manitowoc Shipbuilding won the job with a bid of $123,540, nearly $50,000 below the proposal from Great Lakes Engineering Works. Four other yards declined to bid, because with only a week between getting the specs and the bidding deadline, they felt they didn't have time to prepare. Commissioner Van Wagoner deflected criticism that he'd allowed the work to go to an out-of-state yard by citing the savings in moving the ship and the wide difference in the bids. By now, a Pere Marquette crew headed by Captain Edward S. Cronberg and Chief Engineer Otto Leitz had fired off the boilers and cast off from Ludington for Manitowoc, about six hours away. The voyage, which started about 1:30 p.m. on March 22, was not without incident. No sooner had the order been given to get underway than the whole ship shuddered, and the sound of splintering wood could be heard. Lightened of her heavy parts load, the Pere Marquette 20 now floated high enough that her whale strake, the rub rail along the widest part of the hull, had been wedged under the pier. As the ship began to move, the Michigan Metal Fender on the edge was pried out, catching against a cluster of pilings. The pilings were splintered, and about 110 feet of the whale strake was ripped off, doing $1,017 in damage. Since there was nothing to do except continue to Manitowoc for repairs, the ship made the crossing under her own power, arriving at about 6:30 that evening. The repairs were added into the conversion schedule at Manitowoc, and the ship's insurer paid for the damage. Marine officials later charged Capt. Cronberg with a "collision," a charge he apparently successfully protested. Shipyard workers began conversion work the next day, on the 23rd, stripping rails from the cardeck. The State felt the scrap steel value would more than compensate for the cost of removing them. The State also agreed to replace the 20's 34-year-old boilers with the nearly new pair previously removed from the Pere Marquette 15. The $20,000 purchase was looked on as an investment, cheaper than making emergency repairs should the ferry's old boilers break down in the heat of a busy tourist season. Within short order, the ferry was moved into drydock, and the serious work of converting her to an auto carrier began. The Steamboat Inspectors, this time from the Milwaukee office, reinspected her and came up with another long list of necessary repairs, submitted in a series of letters sent over several days in early April. Their requirements added a further $26,000 to the conversion costs, which Commissioner Van Wagoner protested to the Secretary of Commerce in Washington, D.C. "I'm already under fire for having the work done out of state," he complained, "These additional cost items negate the savings we achieved by going to the contracted yard." The secretary's reply was unsympathetic. He explained the inspectors were only doing their jobs to make sure the resultant ship was completely refurbished and would operate safely for the years to come. He said the additional work the Milwaukee inspectors required would not have been found in the initial cursory dockside inspection, and only became visible once the ship was more thoroughly inspected at the shipyard. Van Wagoner resigned himself to the additional expense. As with the City of Cheboygan before her, the PM 20 required conversion to side loading. Manitowoc asked Michigan for a set of plans so that side ramps could be cut to match the ones on the Cheboygan. Apparently, no one had gotten copies of the plans from the Lund yard, however, so engineers armed with tape measures and sketchpads made the trek from Manitowoc to the Straits and made a new set of drawings. The openings on both ships were, therefore, designed and spaced nearly the same. But now that Michigan was to have two ships capable of end loading, it made more sense to have docking facilities to take advantage of that feature. In late February, the Highway Department announced it would accept bids to modify the St. Ignace Utility Pier to make an end loading slip for the two largest ferries. Bids were to be opened March 1, and called for construction to be completed as quickly as possible. The new dock would take 20,000 yards of gravel to fill in the south side of the pier, leading to a 50-foot apron where ships could load from the stern, much like they were originally designed to do as railway ferries. The gravel would be surfaced with 1,500 square yards of concrete to make a parking lot for 191 autos waiting to board, plus a double-wide exit lane for unloading vehicles. New piles all along the south side of the coal dock would act as fenders, with a cluster of pilings near the end of the pier for a turning dolphin to assist the ships as they swung around to land stern first. A second dolphin at the mouth of the slip would guide the stern up to the apron for landing. New highway entrances and ticket offices across from the Nicolet Hotel would complete the construction, which was expected to use the entire area between the beach and Grant's Chicago Market. The new parking area would greatly reduce traffic congestion, which continued to clog State Street in the busiest months. The job was awarded to the Love Construction Engineering Company of Muskegon, which bid $60,293.83 to complete the work. A bid from Alpine Engineering Company of Detroit was disqualified because of an error in figures. The winning company's owners, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Love, immediately visited St. Ignace to arrange for work to start, and by the second week of March a huge pile driver, a large steam boiler, and railcars of square timbers, arrived at the rail depot across from the jobsite. The equipment was skidded across the street on the ice, and the work on the dock remodeling began. Next week: The City of Munising. Copyright 2007 by Les Bagley. All rights reserved. |
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