Autos Across Mackinac: George Lloyd Is New Acting Superintendent

Appointed in 1950 as acting superintendent, Capt. George W. Lloyd replaced Capt. John Kelsner when the latter left the ferries for a job at a Cleveland shipyard. No one at the time realized it, but when Lloyd gained the job permanantly, he would be the last superintendent of the Michigan State Ferries. (Hy-Lighter Magazine, Michigan State Highway Department)

The St. Ignace News is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Mackinac Bridge this year by serializing Les Bagley's unpublished history of Michigan State Ferries, "Autos Across Mackinac." In last week's installment, a contract was awarded to build a new icebreaker ferry, and Ferry Superintendent John Kelsner announced his resignation to take a post with a shipyard in Cleveland.

Part 41: Another Superintendent

By Les Bagley

It had been more than two months since Capt. John Kelsner had left for Cleveland, and with the new "Great White Fleet" season about to begin on March 12, Commissioner Charles Ziegler announced the appointment of a new "Acting Superintendent" to steer the fleet's course into the 1950s. The man he chose was recently-hired Captain George W. Lloyd, late of The Straits of Mackinac and City of Cheboygan. While Lloyd had only been with the ferries for nine months, he'd been on the Great Lakes since 1923 when he'd shipped out as a deck hand for Nicholson Universal Steamship of Detroit. He became a licensed officer in 1930 and was appointed captain in 1940. Despite his unlimited Master's License for all of the Great Lakes, Lloyd's appointment again fueled speculation his promotion was payback for unmasking the fare collection scam the summer before.

On June 6, 1950, shortly after the contracts were awarded for a new icebreaker ferry, Governor G. Mennen Williams (center) signed the bill creating a new Mackinac Bridge Authority. Highway Commissioner Charles Ziegler (far right) was appointed as an ex-officio member, since it was felt his department would probably end up building the bridge. (Bentley Library, Charles Ziegler papers)

In addition to mapping out needs for maintenance and crewing before the ferries started in the spring, Lloyd spent much of his free time in the next two months looking for a house somewhere in St. Ignace. He marveled at the miniature cabin, complete with scale furnishings and lawn, which Roy McElroy built in his spare time, and brought into the office one day. And he promised to take time off for a plane ride, once Eddy Shoemaker got his pilot's license.

By April, political season was well underway. Governor G. Mennen Williams faced a new Republican challenger, a man who had Michigan gubernatorial experience. Former Governor Harry F. Kelley announced he would seek to unseat Williams in November. But when it came to re-establishing a Mackinac Bridge Authority, both candidates were in accord. W. S. Woodfill wrote that with the support of both candidates, he was convinced the legislature would act favorably on the issue. Meanwhile, with the spring schedule underway, Capt. Lloyd sent The Straits to River Rouge for maintenance in drydock.

On Monday, May 1, Commissioner Ziegler joined several other Highway Department officials at River Rouge for a brief ceremony. That morning the keel for Great Lakes Engineering Works' Hull 296 was laid on the ways, the official start of construction on the Highway Department's long-awaited new icebreaker, though steel fabrication had actually been underway for several months. Since Ziegler had the rest of the Highway Department to run, he entrusted day-to-day supervision of the project to George W. Foster, a department bridge engineer who had served with him in the pre-Van Wagoner days, had left, and been rehired in 1945. Foster would be the main point of contact between the Highway Department, naval architect L. A. Baier, and shipyard president George Haskell.

With construction of the new boat finally underway and projected for completion by March, 1951, it became imperative that docks to handle the new ship be constructed. Despite Mayor Phillips predictions that the state would seek bids for a dock at the furnace site in February, weather delays held up the project until early May, when legal notices appeared in area papers. Commissioner Ziegler estimated the St. Ignace project would cost about $360,000. It would consist of two end-loading docks on the east side of Graham's Point, at the foot of Pero Street. These would be sandwiched between two sideloading slips for the smaller boats. To make the site deep enough for the new ferry, at least 194,500 cubic yards of material needed to be removed to a depth of 20 to 22 feet below water level.

The project was to include a holding area for up to 500 cars. Bids on the St. Ignace project's dredged basin were due by May 18, and the job was subsequently awarded to Lyons Construction Company of Whitehall. Bids for land-side construction and for new facilities in Mackinaw City weren't advertised until later.

But bad weather through the early spring held up more than dock construction plans. Traffic had fallen off on the ferries by as much as 12.4% in April. That put the annual count at -2.9% compared to 1949 levels. Officials still predicted a good tourist season once the weather improved, and the Jaycees began plans to open a summer long tourist information booth, but May ferry travel was also down by 7.8%.

Even Memorial Day travel was down by some 600 cars below the year before. The ferries experienced some waits on the docks, but for the most part, northbound traffic was handled nicely throughout the period. The southbound rush brought the Chief Wawatam briefly into play, however, to avoid congestion in St. Ignace.

Governor Williams was experiencing congestion in Lansing during his special legislative session. While he'd asked for a $112 million statewide spending program, the lawmakers instead cut state spending by $15 million. In an address before the CIO convention in Grand Rapids, the governor charged the Republican Party was dominated by "special interests." He also made a dramatic eleventhhour appearance before the legislature on the eve of its May 20 recess, appealing to the lawmakers not to reduce government grants for schools, hospitals, and other worthy causes. But the Republican reaction was "pure politics."

Despite the sting of his budget defeat, Williams pressed ahead with plans to revive the Mackinaw Straits Bridge Authority, and with constant lobbying by Stewart Woodfill, the legislature passed the measure. On Monday, June 5, the governor appointed seven members to the board, prior to signing the bill to officially recreate the agency the next day. Though he'd asked Woodfill, a Republican, to chair the group, the hotelier declined, saying that, since he'd been so publicly involved in the project, people might think he had a vested interest other than just improving Michigan. He also didn't mention that he might not have been a registered voter in Michigan.

(In his book, "Bridging the Straits," Lawrence A. Rubin notes the chairman of the "Mackinac Bridge Citizen's Committee" may not have been registered in Michigan, as his residence on Mackinac Island was just his summer home. But Woodfill's longtime legal counsel, Thomas R. Winquist, says the Island was his full-time legal address. Whatever the case, Woodfill often avoided the limelight, letting others claim credit.)

Instead, Woodfill put forth a carefully considered slate of candidates for the governor's consideration, half of them Republicans, half Democrats. Williams considered the list and gave it his approval. The men he appointed were: George A. Osborn, editor and publisher of the Sault Ste. Marie Evening News, to a two-year term; former Governor Murray D. Van Wagoner to a six-year term; Charles T. Fisher, Jr., president of the National Bank of Detroit, to a four-year term; Fred M. Zeder, vice-president of Chrysler Corp., to a two-year term, and William Cochran, Jr. of Iron Mountain, the U.P. distributor for General Motors trucks, to a four-year term. By law, he also made Highway Commissioner Charles Ziegler a de facto member of the committee. Acting as temporary chairman of the committee, pending his confirmation by the legislature, would be former U. S. Senator Prentiss M. Brown, appointed by Williams to a six-year term.

"We have started to build a bridge across the Straits," Williams declared. "It may be some time before piers begin to rise or steel cables are actually hung, but we are on our way."

An informal organizational meeting was held, followed by a brief ceremony in which Williams signed the bill and handed the members their official appointments. Senator Brown said he was sure all the new authority members wanted a bridge, but emphasized the importance of making sure the project was feasible. The Authority was given $100,000 in Highway Department money for preliminary investigations, including, but not limited to, surveys, soundings, borings, and estimates. Dean Crawford of the University of Michigan College of Engineering was to recommend a panel of three consulting engineers to the authority, "who shall determine whether a bridge can safely and feasibly be constructed." The committee was to have it's first formal meeting June 24 on Mackinac Island.

In Mackinaw City and St. Ignace, folks were glad something might someday be done, but they'd heard it all before. Meanwhile, the Highway Department applied to the Army Corps of Engineers for permission to dredge and construct a dock for the new icebreaker on the north side of the existing ferry dock in Mackinaw City. The dredged material, approximately 33,900 cubic yards, would leave a clear depth of not less than 50 feet and be deposited in the Straits of Mackinac.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Ziegler was gathering glowing reviews all across Michigan. In June he was presented with an Indian headdress and named Chief Mi-Kana-Ke- Nimi, "Man Who Builds Roads," by the Ottawa Tribe in Harbor Springs, also receiving a birch bark plaque from Chief Pipi-Qwa for the honor. And the Plymouth Mail cited Ziegler for having his department judged the outstanding Highway Department in the nation for the third consecutive year by the International Institute of Traffic Engineers. Ziegler's attitude toward improving traffic engineering and design was also part of the criteria for the award.

At last, good weather prevailed at the Straits, and with the weather came auto traffic from tourists bent on visiting Northern Michigan. After several months of declining auto counts, June ferry traffic increased by 11.7% over 1940 levels, enough to boost the annual count to +1.5%. But that was just the harbinger of traffic to come.

As the Independence Day weekend approached, ferry traffic increased to gridlock. The fourth fell on a Tuesday in 1950, but by noon the Friday before, cars lined up in Mackinaw City, with waits lasting 8 to 10 hours or more. An Army exercise at the Soo with a northbound convoy contributed to the chaos. Saturday, July 1, saw past records for one-day traffic fall. That day the ferries transported 6,790 vehicles alone. The northbound rush was the heaviest experienced so far, and things didn't slow down until at least midnight on Sunday. The southbound rush wasn't as hectic, with fewer lines reported. While it appeared many motorists wanted to avoid the problems they'd experienced coming north and went home early, by the end of the holiday the count was up 1.3% above the previous record set only the year before.

Southbound travelers, however, enjoyed the antics of a nesting seagull, which that weekend hatched three young at the end of Dock 2 in plain sight of ferry crews and riders. But traffic fell off again after the holiday. By the end of the month, figures showed the ferries had carried 5.4% fewer cars than they had the July before. The ferries did make one improvement. The department completed a new addition to the St. Ignace office to allow more space for the staff. Work crews off the ships painted the interior walls green.

In mid-July, the Highway Department opened bids for construction of the new landside portion of the furnace site dock in St. Ignace and the new slip on the north side of the dock in Mackinaw City. Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. of Chicago submitted the low bid of $2,599,855 for the work. But that bid was rejected for being $600,000 over the $2 million previously authorized by the legislature. New bids were then advertised for opening August 3, but still came out $157,281 too high. This time, Ludke Engineering won the work in St. Ignace for $1.334,884 and B. H. Sargent and H. R. Boyd of Dearborn won the Mackinaw City job for $476,662. Great Lakes Dredge and Dock came in with the third part of the work, pledging to do the dredging on both sides for $345,735. This time, despite the high costs involved, the contracts were approved.

Now, work focused on getting cars between the new St. Ignace dock and the main highway. Highway Department spokesman Marion W. Landon, of Lansing, was dispatched north to meet with the St. Ignace City Council and other interested leaders on August 21. He told and audience of more than 100 about plans to construct a new two-lane, two-way concrete road from the intersection of Pero Road and State Street, westerly for about a block, then through a sweeping curve to a new intersection with Highway 2, at about the site of the Sorenson gas station. "

That is the most direct, safest route," he noted. "The new road should be able to handle from five to seven thousand cars a day with no difficulty."

"The Highway Department is inclined to ask for a limited access thoroughfare along this new route," he said. "With that much traffic, for safety, we don't want entrances to every roadway, every driveway, and every subdivision." He didn't mention that the department also wanted to thwart examples of property speculation witnessed years before when the site of the state's first dock was under consideration, and when speculators grabbed up property near Graham's Point when the Highway Department purchased the furnace site years before. One of those speculators, former mayor A. R. Highstone, then gave a brief history of the inauguration of the state ferry service in 1923.

There was little discussion of Landon's proposals, except to stress that Highway 2 be maintained as the main northbound thoroughfare through St. Ignace. Mayor Phillips told the council that he would call a special meeting to pass such a resolution and to award the state jurisdiction over the proposed new right-of-way, possibly in the next week. He was a little premature. The council didn't get around to passing the resolution until their meeting of September 19, but once passed, the council further established the new 0.04-mile-long street as a State Trunkline Highway. The thoroughfare would later come to be known as Ferry Lane.

Just before Labor Day, the state also advertised for a contractor to build and install transfer bridges for the new ferry docks. Unlike the end-loading slips the ferries now used, the new spans were to be engineering marvels. Each span would not only raise and lower to accommodate changes in lake levels and vessel freeboard, but also would move forward and backward, to allow access to a vessel even if it couldn't reach all the way into the slip due to ice or other obstructions. The contractors were to furnish all structural steel, including cables, rails, winches, hydraulics, and electrical equipment to build one span in Mackinaw City, and two identical spans in St. Ignace. Bids for the transfer spans were to be opened on November 18.

With falling traffic counts all summer, state officials estimated Labor Day travel would be down about an equal amount. They were wrong. Traffic in the central and southern portions of the state grew on trunkline highways by 16%, while at the Straits, holiday traffic on the ferries was up 8.2% over 1949. On Saturday, September 2, a new record was set for the number of trips made by the ferries in a single day. The ferries made 23 southbound departures, with boats leaving St. Ignace on an average of every 20 minutes during daylight hours. Still, traffic at the Straits was down by about 3.2% for the year.

As post Labor Day travel fell off, the ferries went to their fall schedule in mid-September, with departures every 90 minutes from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. from Mackinaw City, and additional sailings at 1:30 and 4:30 a.m. From the St. Ignace side, boats left every 90 minutes from 6 a.m. to midnight, with an extra sailing at 3 a.m. Additional departures were promised if warranted by traffic, until hunting season geared up about November 7. The ferries would then run wild until December 1, when the early winter schedule took effect.

With declining ridership nearly all summer, officials were a bit surprised when September traffic figures came in 4.3% higher than the year before. It wasn't enough to boost annual totals to the plus column, however. Ridership in 1950 still remained 2.1% below 1949.

Despite a drop in ferry travel over the year, Michigan's U.P. resort operators said they'd actually posted a gain in business over 1949, and to seek an even greater improvement in 1951, the Tourist Council asked the legislature for an even greater advertising budget. The council had been formed in 1945 and given a $250,000 annual budget. But in 1949, the budget was cut to $225,000, and with inflation, that rate really meant about 35% less. The council asked for Almost $300,000 in 1951, and more than $333,000 in 1952. Newspaper editors in the U.P. called the request a "no-brainer."

Less than six weeks remained before the November elections, and Governor Williams and former Governor Harry Kelly both scheduled meetings and political rallies across the state, including gatherings on both sides of the Straits. Williams focused on the plans for the new bridge, with reports from three noted engineers all being favorable, he added. He accused Republicans of slighting transportation issues in the U.P. and promised that if reelected, such a bridge would soon be built. He charged that the Republican "Old Guard" was "reactionary," and asked voters to "kick the old fogies out" of Lansing.

Kelly, meanwhile, met with local Republicans and charged the Democratic ticket was actually a pawn of the CIO and state labor movements. He asked voters to vote him back in, and "kick Soapy out." Media pundits noted that if voters were in the mood to protest, they had an interesting choice.

Election day was Tuesday, November 7, and when the polls closed, it appeared that the Republicans had recaptured the governor's mansion. Governor Kelly's photo was splashed across front pages, with the headline, "Michigan's New Governor." But his margin was only 5,640 votes statewide and he refused to declare a victory until the official canvas of votes was completed.

Several Republican voters may have missed the chance to help assure Kelly's victory. Republican Highway Commissioner Ziegler, along with his administrative aide, Elmer Hanna, and their wives, had all gone to watch the Michigan- Illinois football game in Ann Arbor the weekend before the election. They were driving home after the game when another car skidded on the ice about four miles outside the college town, and collided with Ziegler's car. Ziegler received broken ribs, while Hanna got a deep cut on his forehead. Their wives and the other driver were also injured, and most of them spent several days in the hospital before being ordered to recuperate at home for at least two weeks.

After their recuperation, Ziegler, still showing signs of his injuries, returned to work in Lansing. And he watched the election results very closely.

While the canvas took place over the next few weeks, the lead in the governor's race changed hands several times, practically guaranteeing a recount. Heavy snow, now falling in Northern Michigan, also practically guaranteed a smaller hunting season rush on the ferries.

With nearly 22 inches of new snow on the ground, nearly 1,500 fewer vehicles crossed northbound than in the previous year. The ferries only came close to reaching capacity on Friday and Saturday before the season actually began, though the lineups in Mackinaw City were still much smaller than in previous years. By Thanksgiving, most hunters had returned home. Southbound lineups reached three miles the weekend before the holiday, and filled the dock on each of the following weekdays. But the dock was cleared by midnight on even the heaviest days of the 1950 deer season.

The commissioner's office later revised the traffic estimates. In a press release the following week, the Highway Department said traffic was only down by about 400 vehicles. By December, taking the whole month of travel into account, the department said November travel was actually up by nearly 5%.

As traffic wound down for the season, the ferries again approached winter layup. The first weekend of December, The Straits of Mackinac was taken to winter at Dock 1. The City of Cheboygan again went to her namesake city the following weekend. The Petoskey and Munising were left to handle the holiday season, and continue service as needed until ice forced them to discontinue service.

One maritime observer said, "I wouldn't be surprised to see ice in the Straits by Christmas." He pointed out that the Straits "didn't warm up all summer, and it wouldn't take much of a cold snap to start ice formations."

The early winter schedule again set service every 90 minutes from each side during the day, with extra trips in the nighttime hours. Those trips were discontinued December 16.

As the holidays approached, ferry workers again set about their winter activities. The ferries cribbage team scored highly for another season in tournament play. The St. Ignace City Council met to officially ask the highway department to give them Dock 1 in the center of town when the state abandoned it for the new Dock 3. The St. Ignace Lions Club, likewise, urged municipal ownership of the pier, to be used for a winter ice rink and to relieve summer parking congestion for downtown businesses. And a cook aboard the ferries, Sim Christianson of Moran, was selected ground observer supervisor for the Michigan Civil Defense organization.

With the recount in the state's gubernatorial race underway, both Republicans and Democrats held off proclaiming victory. The only "for sure" political statement was made by former General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who insisted that he had no political aspirations whatsoever, and had no intention of running for President of the United States. And ferry workers were called to visit the St. Ignace office of the U.S. Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to pick up applications for specially validated merchant mariners documents which would be required before they could set foot on a Great Lakes vessel the next year. The "security measure" was enacted in light of the escalating Korean War, which had already caused the loss of some crewmembers to the draft, and which was sparking anti-Communist sentiment in Washington under the watchful eye of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The documents took up to 30 days to process and required a passport-type photograph, and the worker's present merchant mariner's document, discharge book, or certificate of identification and service. Fortunately for the ferry workers, there was no charge to apply for the new documents.

Even as early as October 1949, licensed officers on the ferries had begun asking for a pay raise. When unlicensed personnel were put on a 40 -hour week with overtime, some of the deckhands with Able Bodied Seamen tickets discovered they were only earning seven cents an hour less than licensed Third Mates, who were at times in complete charge of their vessels.

To correct this perceived inequity, the officers formed a club and asked for a 30% raise, effective immediately. Their request was delayed until January, when Francis Kelly and Mr. Downes from the Civil Service Commission met with about 22 of the men in St. Ignace. They discussed the request and reviewed the wages paid by seven similar companies contacted by the Highway Department. While the annual rate paid by those firms compared favorably to what Michigan paid, the monthly rate for the state's ferry officers ranked quite low.

Duties of the officers, and benefits, including annual leave, sick leave, and pension programs, were also at great variance between the firms.

But Downes and Kelly agreed more that there were greater inequities between officers on different ships in the fleet than there were between the ferries as a group and other, outside companies. They recommended that the officers be put on the same 40-hour basis with overtime as the other employees, recreating the corresponding differences in their pay versus the unlicensed personnel.

That created a problem when work began to build the new icebreaking ferry. With the Korean War in full swing, licensed diesel engineers were in short supply, and the new boat would need several of them, even as construction continued at the Great Lakes Engineering Works yard in River Rouge.

As time came to work on the propulsion system, the Highway Department and Civil Service agreed to hire a chief engineer with appropriate credentials, and pay $540 a month for his salary. That would increase to $565 a month when the boat went into service, or a full 10% more than chief engineers on the steam-powered boats were receiving. The Civil Service Commission further agreed to extend the 10% differential to first, second, and third engineers on the new boat. And since that meant that the engineers made more than the captain, who would be in complete charge of the ship, they also agreed to increase the captain's pay by 10% on the new icebreaker. That put the captain at a much higher pay rate than the other licensed personnel who would also control the ship, and so the pay raises and requests for pay raises on the new boat escalated, even though it hadn't even been launched yet.

The chief engineer appointed to oversee construction and diesel machinery on the new boat was Thomas Killian, who was hired as a Diesel Vessel Engineer IV. Since he had come from outside of Michigan, the Civil Service Commission was asked, and agreed, to waive the residency requirement so Killian could start his job in August 1950.

Finally, in late 1950, the federal government passed legislation requiring a rest day for each week of work aboard vessels serving on the Great Lakes. F. P. Case, who by then had been appointed Assistant Superintendent of the ferries, wrote to Personnel Director Arthur Rasch and compared the ferries' policies with those of the Mackinac Transportation Company, which was working with labor agreements for its crews. He found the men on the railroad ferries were paid 12 months pay for 11 months work, although the national act required only a 15 day paid vacation in addition to a liberty time agreement. The railroad ferries' board chairman doubted unlicensed personnel on his boats would be granted a day off per week, but thought that new, higher wages would be in place before spring 1951.

Despite the federal regulation, it would be several months before the day off policy was extended to Michigan State Ferries licensed personnel.

December's ferry traffic was up over 13%, but, for the first time since the war, the yearly total of cars carried actually declined. Officials blamed a cooler-thannormal summer for diminishing the tourist season, thus keeping motorists away. In 1950, 604,612 cars were carried, down 1,361 from the record set in 1949.

Next week: Lollipops and Motorboats.

Copyright 2007 by Les Bagley. All rights reserved.