Autos Across Mackinac: Pere Marquette 17 Fills Need for More Ferries
Part 27 : AUTO FERRIES IN TRAINING, III
By Les Bagley

Michigan purchased the Pere Marquette 17 for $65,000 and spent another $10,000 to get her to pass inspection to enter service at the Straits. Because the 1940 hunting season rush was in full swing, the ferry was painted white and began carrying automobiles under her original name, although the St. Ignace City Council asked that she be renamed "The City of St. Ignace." (Author's collection)

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge, the St. Ignace News is serializing ferry historian Les Bagley's unpublished history of Michigan State Ferries, "Autos Across Mackinac." In last week's installment, the federal government stepped in to purchase the Mackinaw City and Sainte Ignace, the two smallest ferries in the state fleet of 1940. Michigan made a handsome profit by selling the boats back to the government. But that left a critical need for more ferry capacity at the Straits of Mackinac.

The Pere Marquette 17 was a railroad ferry operating out of Ludington, and a slightly older version of the Pere Marquette 20, which had become the City of Petoskey. (Postcard from author's collection)

There was speculation in several daily papers that the Highway Department would purchase another Lake Michigan carferry, the Pere Marquette 17, as a replacement vessel. She was erroneously reported as owned by the Ann Arbor Railroad. The sources said Michigan would pay $65,000 for the PM 17 in the hope she could be used at the Straits in the 1940 hunting season.

Word of the plans spread quickly, and even before the two small ferries were sold, the St. Ignace City Council met on October 21 and resolved that if the 17 was brought to the Straits, she should be renamed "The City of St. Ignace." Alderman L. E. Goudreau proposed the measure, saying, "If the two smaller boats leave the Straits, the fleet has no boats named after the ferry's northern terminal. We strongly urge Commissioner Van Wagoner to name the new boat so that St. Ignace will be represented in the ferry fleet as heretofore." He made no mention of the southern terminal, Mackinaw City, in his resolution.

One of the reasons the Pere Marquette Railroad had surplus vessels was construction of the most modern ferry on the Great Lakes. The City of Midland 41 would enter service in March 1941. Powered by Skinner Uniflow engines, she was streamlined and powerful. (Postcard from author's collection)

Everything was confirmed on October 22, when the Mackinaw City and Sainte Ignace were removed from the cross-Straits run and sent to River Rouge for final inspection at the shipyard prior to being turned over to the U.S. Government. Once the feds accepted them, Michigan planned to drydock the PM 17 at Manitowoc for inspection and repair prior to bringing her to the Straits. The State expected to pay $10,000 above the purchase price for the 17's drydock and inspection work.

Within days, the ferry sales were all confirmed, and the Pere Marquette 17 was moved from her former home in Ludington, homeport of the Pere Marquette Railroad fleet, to the shipyard in Manitowoc, where Assistant Superintendent A. E. DeLoriea supervised initial conversion work. On a brief visit to the Straits at the end of October, he noted the boat would go to drydock that week. Major conversion work would be held until winter, however, so the ship could be used in the 1940 hunting season. He returned to the shipyard, taking a crew of ferry workers with him, including Captain M. D. Ramage, Chester Madison, and Leo Foglesonger, along with several other men who would compose a portion of the initial crew to bring the boat to St. Ignace.

One of the ferry's more stellar moments was when she stood by to assist the sinking Pere Marquette 18(1), which foundered with a great loss of life. The PM 17 lost several of her own crewmen when the lifeboat they were in flipped, but many people were saved, thanks to the 17 being close by. (Postcard from author's collection)

By early November, Captain George F. Loughlin had returned to his desk following leave for surgery at the Soo. He arrived just in time to learn his boss, Highway Commissioner Murray Van Wagoner, had won the race to become Michigan's next governor. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term as U.S. President, and Fred Bradley was reelected to another term in congress. He also returned to the job just in time to announce that October ferry traffic had increased 11.9% over the figures for the year before. For the year, traffic ran nearly a full month ahead of the previous year's volume, leading Governor-elect Van Wagoner to project a new record would be set by the end of 1940. The annual increase was running at 6.66%.

Captain Loughlin also predicted the new boat in the fleet, the Pere Marquette 17, would arrive at the Straits the second week in November, to be ready for the expected rush of hunting season the following weekend. The boat was expected Saturday night, November 9, but might not arrive until Sunday, he said. On Saturday night, all the available boats would be manned by three full crews and begin 24-hour service to transport hunters as quickly as possible. In addition to the PM 17, the chartered Sainte Marie (II) would be included in the rotation, with the Chief Wawatam available for occasional fill-in runs.

Loughlin said, "We need crisp, cold weather to arouse enthusiasm in deer hunting. If we get favorable weather, the chances for a large number of hunters crossing the Straits are better." He refused to predict the exact size of the 1940 rush, saying too many factors entered into the projections for him to be accurate, concluding, "There is little doubt, however, but that there will be a big influx of hunters, as usual."

The influx started Saturday as scheduled, but the newly purchased Pere Marquette 17 was not in the mix. Delayed in leaving the shipyard, she did not arrive from Manitowoc until 9:10 Monday morning, after an 18-hour voyage. She quickly attracted a crowd of onlookers when she tied up at the St. Ignace coal dock. Built two years earlier than the City of Munising, she was almost exactly the same size, but instead of split passenger cabins on her upper deck, she had a single, larger facility for passengers. While at the shipyard, the PM 17 had been repainted white to match the rest of the fleet, but she had not had any side loading openings cut to allow her to use the older ferry slips. She would therefore rely on end-loading exclusively until she could be further modified. Observers felt that quite a lot of additional work would probably be performed while the ship was laid up at St. Ignace over the winter.

The curious didn't stay around looking for long, however. The first blast of winter drove into St. Ignace Monday night, driving people back to their homes and halting ferry service during the evening hours. Gale force winds, which at times reached hurricane proportions, and extremely high waves swept the region, causing considerable damage to shore-side facilities. It took the City of Munising two hours to make a landing at Dock 2 in St. Ignace, where she finally tied up for the duration. The Chief Wawatam faced similar conditions in Mackinaw City. When she finally landed, ferry service was curtailed for the night. By morning, over a hundred hunter's cars were lined up in Mackinaw City awaiting resumption of service. Snow was piled up to two feet deep on sidewalks, and its weight caused garages, buildings, and power and phone lines to collapse. Before the storm blew out Tuesday night, things would only get worse.

Because of the storm, the Pere Marquette 17 didn't stay around very long, either. When wind and waves started pounding his new ship into the dock and parting her lines, Capt. Ramage ordered her out into the Straits. The 17 spent the night safely anchored off Major Shoals, in the company of a dozen lake freighters.

Other ships weren't so lucky. At least six freighters were reported sunk, with a loss of up to 80 lives. A number of fishing tugs were also reported missing, and the Coast Guard launched a massive search effort as cleanup efforts began in the wake of the storm.

State ferry service resumed Tuesday night at 10:30 as the boats began whittling down a four-milelong line of autos at Mackinaw City. At least 1,200 cars waited patiently on the road, with 200 more first to load on the Mackinaw City dock. At 4 a.m. Wednesday, the Pere Marquette 17 hoisted anchor at Major Shoal and joined the untangling efforts, entering State ferry service unceremoniously.

"Unless cars come too fast, we will have the lineup cleared by nightfall Wednesday night," Assistant Superintendent DeLoriea said. He noted hunters were being advised of the backup at least 100 miles south of the Straits, and this would halt the northward rush somewhat, until after Wednesday. Despite the storm, experts predicted a better-than-average hunting season. Captain Loughlin got his "crisp, cool weather." After the storm, the thermometer hovered about 15 degrees.

At the height of the storm, there was one other change at the State Ferry Service, which got little attention at the time. On Tuesday, Governor Dickinson accepted the resignation of State Highway Commissioner Murray D. Van Wagoner, now Governor-elect, and in his place appointed Van Wagoner's assistant, G. Donald Kennedy, to fill out the remainder of his term.

There was one other major tragedy that week, although it happened nearly 1,800 miles away. The newly opened suspension bridge across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington State, nicknamed "Galloping Gertie" because of its tendency to sway in high winds, collapsed in a spectacular display recorded by newsreel cameras during a windstorm. Newly appointed Highway Commissioner Kennedy, still chairman of the Mackinac Bridge Authority, said his group would look into the "harmonic vibration" that caused the Tacoma bridge collapse, to determine if a similar problem might be inherent in the Mackinac Bridge designs. Professor James H. Cissel noted the Washington bridge failure "confirmed the very worst that could be expected from the departure from "standard bridge designs." He pledged to study plans for the Michigan structure, and said a redesign might be called for to assure such a collapse would not happen again.

At the Straits, hunting season problems weren't over, either. On Wednesday, November 13, the Sainte Marie (II) picked up a boatload of hunters bound for the Upper Peninsula. In swinging around from her slip in Mackinaw City, the ferry managed to go aground. Fortunately, it took only about 15 minutes for the ship to free herself, and she proceeded to St. Ignace with no further problems.

The early season storm kept many nimrods from the trek to UP hunting grounds, and by season end, the total hunter count was about 6,000 below the record 1939 level. Nevertheless, the ferries did set at least one record for hunting season traffic. The same day the Sainte Marie (II) went aground, the ferries hauled 3,684 vehicles, a new hunting season high. The season began to decline as the Thanksgiving holiday approached, and many hunters left the woods early to be home in time for the holiday. By November 20, the boats were running wild to accommodate the southbound rush. With less traffic than expected, the PM 17, having not been completely converted for auto traffic use, was laid up, and the Sainte Marie (II) was used in her place.

While the hunting season was not running as large as projected, the annual ferry traffic count still ran well ahead of 1939, and Commissioner Kennedy predicted that, for the first time, the figures would surpass the 300,000 mark for the year. With a little over a month to go, the boats had moved 284,000 vehicles, nearly 4,000 more than the entire previous year. For the period to date, traffic was up over 18,000 cars. Since record keeping started in 1916, it was said that nearly 2.5 million vehicles had crossed the Straits. For the moment, the deer kill was down, however, with incomplete figures showing it was running nearly a thousand below the record 1939 hunting season.

As the hunters trekked home, one other potential disaster was narrowly averted that November out on Mackinac Island. The monumental Grand Hotel was barely saved from destruction when an automatic sprinkler system installed just a few years before prevented the spread of a fire, in wiring under a central stairway in the unoccupied hotel building.

"The blaze only did about $1,000 in damage," said owner W. S. Woodfill, who happened to be on the Island at the time. He credited the Grinnell sprinklers with saving the building, after watchmen on their rounds discovered the blaze about 2:10 Sunday afternoon, November 17.

It wasn't fire, but lack of steam that again sidelined the Pere Marquette 17 on November 27. While helping out in the Thanksgiving holiday rush, she burst a steam pipe shortly after 6 p.m. while en route from Mackinaw City with just a small load of cars. Fortunately, no one was injured. She anchored in the harbor overnight and at daybreak was brought into Dock No. 2 for repairs.

Governor-elect Van Wagoner and Highway Commissioner Kennedy, perhaps, had ridden the boat shortly before. They met friends in St. Ignace Wednesday morning on their way back to Lansing from their own hunting trip and proudly displayed a buck and a bear they were taking south with them.

Despite his "big game" success, however, Kennedy sounded more like a grinch than a Santa that season. To reduce holiday traffic accidents, the new commissioner urged Michigan municipalities to hold holiday decorations on state trunkline highways to a minimum. He said he didn't want to dampen holiday spirit, but was desirous to see that the season was not marred by needless accidents.

It turned out the hunting season wasn't so dismal after all. The Van Wagoner - Kennedy kills contributed to a better-than-expected hunt, with the buck tally at last ending slightly higher than in 1939. The ferries had set a new record for autos carried in 11 months, 288,131, with nearly 1,000 more just in November than in the year before. The office announced that, once repairs to the Pere Marquette 17 were completed, she would be taken to River Rouge to complete her auto ferry conversion. The work would be easier to do there over the winter than at the St. Ignace lay-up pier.

Unless ice conditions changed more quickly, The Straits of Mackinac and the Munising would operate until the Cheboygan, which was undergoing inspection, replaced the Munising around December 10. The two smallest boats would then provide Christmas holiday service and finish out the 1940 schedule, to be augmented by the Sainte Marie (II) after December 15, when she would most likely replace The Straits on the run. The season's final schedule would continue until January 7, unless ice stopped the Cheboygan sooner than expected. After that, the railroad ferries would continue on their own.

Just prior to the end of the season, the long awaited election to unionize unlicensed ferry workers was scheduled for December 6. L. C. Sauers, director of the Highway Department's office management, arrived at the Straits to set up ballot boxes aboard each of the boats then in operation. He met with representatives of both the AFLand the CIO to arrange the balloting, which would ask three questions: Do you want to be unionized? If so, do you favor the A.F. of L? If so, do you favor the C.I.O? About 120 unlicensed men were eligible to vote in the election, which was conducted by secret ballot onboard the ferries. Sauers announced that, should a union be adopted, the winner would then be able to negotiate all labor claims with the highway department. The department recognized both unions and agreed to negotiations with the winner, if one was determined by the vote.

Neither one was. In an editorial in the Cheboygan Observer, Al Weber commended the ferry workers for their "backbone and understanding of the value of independence enough to crack down and vote against unionizing the job, and thus make the operations (at the Straits) all subject to influences far away and quite outside the reach of the State Highway Department." He said that "perhaps no group of public workers anywhere were better cared for or looked after, or better paid, than the men connected with all parts of the Michigan State Ferry Service." He added, "No body of men anywhere could give a better, more considerate and more courteous kind of service than those men have given. Put them under the dominance of foreign and selfish influences, that seek their membership largely for the dues it added to the pay off pile and no telling what kind of service we would have there, or how long it would have continued without strikes and tie ups. The decision of those men to let well enough alone . . . lends a lot of encouragement to that belief that Northern Michigan men do not look with favor on being herded by straw bosses. There are good unions and bad, but the bad seemed to have gained a foothold over the nation."

As 1940 ended, officials tallied up the traffic count for the busiest year in ferry service history. While the total, 296,259 so far, missed the projected 300,000 by less than 4,000 cars, it was a record, nonetheless, and there were still two days left to go before the season officially ended. The new PM 17 was sent to River Rouge to finish her conversion, The Straits and the Munising were tied up for the winter at the utility pier, and they would be joined in lay up by the Cheboygan when she tied up at the end-loading slip at Dock 2 on January 7.

The Munising's Captain Andrew S. Coleman left for a Christmas visit to friends near Lansing. His party was involved in an auto accident near Durand. Knocked unconscious, the captain and several others suffered concussions, cuts, and bruises and were hospitalized briefly in Flint. He returned to the Straits, minus his demolished car, the first week of January.

As he returned, Captain Loughlin was leaving for Lansing. He was scheduled to attend the inauguration ceremonies for his former boss, Governor Murray D. Van Wagoner. The inauguration would take place January 1.

THE LAST GASP

BEFORE THE BLAST

The year 1940 ended with preparations for an even greater year of tourism in 1941. The Highway Department released a new winter highway map showing areas where roads would be kept open for wintertime travel. For the first time, the new map included a color photograph on the cover, featuring the Highway 2 turn just north of St. Ignace at Carp River.

In his opening message to the Michigan Legislature, Governor Van Wagoner requested an advertising appropriation of $200,000 annually for the next biennium to be used to generate further tourist growth in Michigan. The request gathered the endorsement of all four statewide tourist associations and the Michigan Advertising Commission.

But 1940 also ended with a massive buildup toward the potential U.S. involvement in the war in Europe. By fall, the selective service had instituted a draft, and military aged men were expected to register. A quota of 200 men was established for the Straits region, with the first to go leaving in November, selected from among a list of volunteers. Later, men would be "volunteered" by the draft board for military service.

The former Michigan State Ferries Mackinaw City and Sainte Ignace had been drafted by the federal government and had spent the last months of 1939 at the Great Lakes Engineering Works shipyard in River Rouge, where considerable work was done on them. Although they weren't greatly changed, people who saw them said their gangways had been sealed in and a steel plate had been installed before their pilothouses. Conversion work cost $14,150 for the Sainte Ignace and $13,439 for the Mackinaw City.

On November 18, the Detroit Marine Board blamed one additional expense to the Mackinaw City on Captain Ben Houle, who denied the charges. It seems that back on August 9, 1940, the ferry, while under Houle's command, had struck a submerged obstruction on her port side while leaving the dock in St. Ignace. The damage, amounting to $6,000 in bent plates in the hull, had not been reported at the time and was only discovered when the ship was drydocked for inspection prior to being sold.

A hearing to determine Capt. Houle's culpability in the matter was held before the Class C board of the U. S. Bureau of Navigation and Inspection, at 10 a.m. Friday, January 10, at the St. Ignace Municipal Building. Houle and his officers and crew were all called to testify. The captain, who was represented by attorney Edward Fenlon, was charged with negligence in failing to report the incident, a violation of marine law, which required that damage above $500 must be reported. Houle pleaded not guilty.

At the hearing, his first officer, Harvey C. Johnston, said he was in charge of the ship when the accident occurred. He said he immediately ordered Watchman Morway to examine the hull of the ship. Morway reported that the hull was not leaking and that no damage was readily apparent. Subsequent testimony by other crewmembers substantiated the evidence.

Houle said that he'd been informed of the situation by his first officer but that, upon learning there was no damage, he did not feel it necessary to make a report. Captain Duncan McGregor noted the state boats often struck "dead heads" or submerged logs, as they moved about the lakes, and it was possible the Mackinaw City had bumped that type of obstruction on leaving the terminal. Subsequent examination by the ship's watchman and first mate revealed no damage, and the incident was noted in the ship's log, but not reported to the inspectors.

In drydocked, up to a dozen dents, some up to an inch deep, were noted in the hull. The dented plates were replaced at a cost of $6,000, although the ship would have been equally seaworthy without the replacements.

Testimony was forwarded to the bureau in Washington without a formal recommendation. The bureau later apparently absolved Houle of any wrongdoing. By midmonth, the Mackinaw City was pictured in the Boston Daily Globe, hard at work on her new job as a troop transport, carrying 535 draftees across to forts on the other side of Boston Harbor.

On January 14, the St. Ignace public ice rink at the State Dock opposite the Nicolet Hotel opened for the first time in 1941. More than 200 skaters enjoyed a "skate to music" session at the new facility, which had been built in just a week using donated materials from several area businesses.

While ice formed easily on the rink surface, the surface of the Straits was another matter. In mid- January a combination design and survey crew was stationed in St. Ignace to await enough ice on the Straits that they could begin soundings and other fieldwork for construction of the new causeway out from the north shore. The crew started working from boats, but their inability to anchor in deep water made getting accurate readings difficult. In addition to gathering survey data, the workers actually also did much of the causeway design work while in the field.

The lack of ice allowed the ferry season to last nearly 10 days longer than expected. Finally, on January 17, the City of Cheboygan pulled out of Mackinaw City at 6 p.m. and tied up in St. Ignace at 7 o'clock to end the elongated year. A crew of workers then prepared her for the winter by conditioning her for cold weather lay-up.

With all the boats tied up, it was a good time to do needed repairs. On January 23, the Highway Department advertised for bids to rebuild the starboard engine and feed pumps on the City of Munising. Proposals were due in Lansing by January 29.

That's just about the time Purser Frank Ahlich got back into service. He and his dog were driving in his car from Black Lake toward St. Ignace when his vehicle was sideswiped by a truck that didn't stop. The collision spun his car around and into the bank at the side of the road. He was knocked unconscious, and when he recovered, he was laying in the road with the dog next to him. Friends gave him first aid, and a doctor stitched up an 8- inch gash in his head and told him to stay in bed for a week because he might have had a concussion.

Bids for the Munising job were opened in Lansing on schedule, and the work was awarded to the St. Ignace Machine Shop, which was charged with boring cylinders, replacing pistons, rings, and other machine repairs aboard the ship. Wags noted it was good to see state repair work being awarded to local firms, which had shown they had the caliber to do the jobs.

Other ferry work also occupied a crew of 15 men, who began chipping paint in bunkers aboard The Straits of Mackinac. Jack Marshall's bridge crew began adding additional piling to Dock 2, and a crew began taking soundings at both St. Ignace and Mackinaw City to see if dredging would be necessary in 1941 near the ferry docks.

The long awaited Straits ice finally formed late in the month, and the state's team of 13 surveyors began work on the causeway approach for the proposed bridge. The thrust of their work, however, was actually the design of the new dock to shorten the cross-Straits ferry route. According to the design, the new docks would be directly off Densmore's house at the Densmore Tourist Park. The route from the docks was penciled in, leading straight to Highway 2, except for sweeping curves where the new road would connect with the highway.

The Highway Department also advertised for bids to build part of a spectacular new 750-foot bridge across the Cut River west of St. Ignace on Highway 2. The initial bid request was for concrete abutments set on steel shell concrete piles for the substructure. When finished, the bridge would be the highest and longest highway bridge in Michigan.

In 1941, a new law took effect requiring new licenses for "motorboats for hire," which affected many of the private power and speedboat owners who transported passengers to Mackinac Island and other nearby destinations. The new permits had to be obtained before April 25, 1941, from the U. S. Marine Inspector's office. Conveniently, that facility had moved to St. Ignace near the end of 1940, when the offices in Marquette and Port Huron were closed in budgetary moves.

January 1940 ferry traffic had set records for so early in the year, and planners had projected a banner year for tourism. In January 1941, the traffic levels were even greater. Twenty-one percent more cars crossed on the ferry than had crossed the year before, leading prognosticators to feel tourism would be even better. The numbers where helped when the Cheboygan had remained in service past midmonth. But now that the boats were laid up, volumes still held with the Sainte Marie (II) running alone. After completing the statistics, Assistant Ferry Super- intendent A. E. DeLoriea left on a business trip to Cleveland.

There was a rumor, however, that all might soon be changed with the Sainte Marie (II). A dispatch from Washington, D. C., in mid-February reported that the House Subcommittee on Appropriations had authorized leasing the Chief Wawatam to open navigation at the Soo much earlier in the year. While the price offered was said to be between $50,000 and $60,000, the Mackinac Transportation Company was not willing to release the Chief from her railroad duties and, therefore, would more than likely want to send the Sainte Marie (II). That meant her lease to the state would have to be terminated early, and the Chief Wawatam would end up doing both railroad and auto ferrying jobs.

February 1941 saw the final payment of funds to the depositors of the old First National Bank, who had waived 45% of their accounts when the bank reopened after the bank holiday of 1933. Nearly 1,400 depositors' assets in the amount of nearly a quarter million dollars were placed in the hands of trustees, in the hope the money could be recovered someday. Finally, on February 14, the remaining assets of the old bank were sold and the depositors were paid off in full, a fitting Valentine's present to people who had waited more than seven years for the balance of their money.

On Monday, February 17, Commissioner Kennedy addressed ferry workers at the Nicolet Hotel. He most likely commented on the recent vote against unionization, among other topics in his talk. Meanwhile, work continued in Detroit on the Pere Marquette 17. Captain James R. Blain and Engineer Leo Foglesonger arrived home for a break from the job and were spelled by Captain Coleman and Engineer M. F. Madden, who took their places in Detroit.

Meanwhile, Captain T. Howard Saunders, executive committee chairman of the International Shipmasters Association, asked Great Lakes area draft boards to exempt able seamen from selective service requirements. He feared a shortage of manpower in the anticipated record-breaking 1941 shipping season, if too many more seamen were drafted.

By mid-March, it was apparent that the Sainte Marie (II) was going to be drafted for ice-breaking work in the Straits and in the St. Mary's River at the Soo, so Commissioner Kennedy ordered her laid up to prepare for the job. On March 20, the ferry turned her auto duties over to the Chief Wawatam while crews overhauled her engines and equipment for the potential job ahead. Three crews were stationed aboard each vessel, so the Sainte Marie (II) could leave for ice breaking at a moment's notice. More than 200 tons of coal were loaded in her bunkers, and an additional supply of 16 rail cars of coal were loaded on her cardeck, giving her a supply of over 525 tons. While bucking the ice, she normally used about 70 tons of coal a day, meaning she had slightly over a full week's supply on board.

The federal government agreed to pay for rebuilding the planking between the Chief's tracks so the ferry could be more easily used to handle autos as well as rail cars while the Sainte Marie (II) was away. The call came, and the Sainte Marie went icebreaking at the end of March. The government authorized up to $90,000 for the ferry's lease.

In response, Senator Prentiss Brown introduced another bill in Congress for construction of a new icebreaker for the region. His bill, S-1162, which would provide for a Coast Guard vessel to break ice in lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, was read twice before the Senate Committee on Commerce. The vessel was to be stationed at the Straits, or near St. Ignace, according to Brown's proposed measure.

While Brown's icebreaker bill was gathering steam in the Senate, a new ferry was building seam on Lake Michigan. The Pere Marquette's carferry City of Midland 41 became the most luxurious ferry on the Great Lakes when she entered service out of Ludington at the end of March.

Copyright 2007 by Les Bagley, all rights reserved.