Autos Across Mackinac: Ferry Traffic Continues To Increase in 1952
Part 46: Life Aboard the Ferries
By Les Bagley

In the early 1950s, ferry crews either lived aboard the vessels for the summer season or at least spent 16 hours a day onboard, working or doing "riding time." When off duty, they read books, enjoyed hobbies, or basked in the Straits' summer weather and watched the passing crowds. Here, a crew on one of the steamships mugs for the photographer from the boat deck, near the ship's funnel. Three of them are Jim Gustafson (left), Bill Mohr (in back), and Jack Prout (second from right). Can anyone identify the other two? (M.J. Elzinga collection)

As part of the 50th Mackinac Bridge anniversary, the St. Ignace news is serializing Les Bagley's unpublished manuscript of the history of Michigan State Ferries, which for 34 years crossed the Straits carrying autos, trucks, and passengers. Mr. Bagley's photo book on the ferry history is available in many area bookstores.

Despite long lines of cars waiting to cross the Straits of Mackinac in the summer of 1952, ferry crewmen who lived aboard their vessels had other pastimes. One of their favorites was girl watching. While a few women wore slacks and pants when they joined the WWII workforce, most still wore skirts and dresses throughout the 1950s. For hot weather vacations, the uniform of choice was a light cotton sun dress.

While most ferry crewmembers shared cabins with others of their same rank, only the captains and chief engineers had private staterooms. This may have been the bedroom occupied by Vacationland Chief Engineer Ben Wilson, who set up an electric train to circle his cabin. (Michigan Department of Transportation)

Moving ferryboats not only make waves in the water, they generate hundreds of air currents and eddies about their superstructures. The crew knew exactly where these were on each ship, and positioned themselves to best catch unsuspecting comely passengers caught in the updrafts.

One engineer took the crew's girl watching too far. His cabin on the Munising became very popular. Located adjacent to the women's restroom, it was separated by a solid steel bulkhead. Hooks, shelves, and other fittings were attached with bolts tapped through the steel. On his own, he selected what he thought would be an optimum location and drilled another bolt through. The bolt held absolutely nothing and was thumb tight for easy removal.

Even with the new Vacationland and the new Dock 3 in St. Ignace, traffic often backed up in 1952, although motorists' waits were not as long as they had been in previous summers. In this view from a C.C. Eby postcard, the new ferry loads, while the City of Munising steams toward Mackinaw City after leaving the slip seen to the left. While the new dock sped ferry travel, merchants in St. Ignace complained it had drained their tourist business by 50%. (Author's collection)

But the days of girl watching onboard the ferries were soon to be numbered.

Back in April, the Michigan Legislature had, at the urging of Prentiss Brown and others, passed Act 214 of the Public Acts of 1952. The unheralded measure allowed the Mackinac Bridge Authority to do more than investigate the feasibility of bridging the Straits. It allowed it to sell revenue bonds to actually do so. As summer waned, Brown made several trips to Washington, D.C., offering the bonds to Harry McDonald of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), and Brown predicted that actual bridge construction would soon start. But the RFC ultimately was no more interested than in the pre-war era. Brown also approached several private investment firms, but without underwriting by the State of Michigan, there were no takers. And Commissioner Ziegler was adamant that his department could not afford to underwrite or even guarantee the bonds.

Still, in his travels, Brown promised a bridge would come soon.

"I know many people enjoy a boat ride across the Straits," he noted. "They also enjoy a horse and buggy ride. But they wouldn't swap their autos for a surrey with a fringe on top."

Captain Frank Nelson and his wife traveled by auto in mid- August. They went to Detroit for his 79-year-old father's funeral. They weren't the only ones on the road. Nearly 20% more cars crossed the ferry that August than in the year before. On August 22, not a holiday weekend, the ferries set another alltime record when 8,500 vehicles were transported, nearly double the peak-load record of 1942. Surveys showed more than half the travelers came from Ohio, Indiana, and points east. And tourist officials noted the potential for visitors from those areas had barely been tapped.

Labor Day 1952 climaxed the greatest resort season in Michigan history. Holiday ferry travel exceeded even the most optimistic predictions, with 26,346 vehicles tallied over the four-day weekend. But with the Vacationland sweeping cars off the docks, few motorists waited for more than one boat. For the year, traffic was up 18.6%.

Things slowed only slightly in September. In his "Ferry Tales" column, Sim Christiansen noted, "The State County Welfare and Supervisor brass, holding their annual convention at Cheboygan, were guests of the Highway Department aboard The Straits of Mackinac. Captain Harold Hill, skipper of The Straits, met the group of 270 at Cheboygan. Casting off at 1:45, the group was on its way to a voyage of thrills and romance. Cruising along the shores of the picturesque Bois Blanc Island, the guests could view the wilds of its deserted shores as the deer came out of deep pine foliage to quench their thirst from a warm day in the forest. The steamship then proceeded past Round Island lighthouse, deserted for many years, its peaks reaching toward the sky like a haunted house in a ghost film of the movie world. Nearing Mackinac Island, the great Fort Mackinac, a relic of the past era, standing proudly on its perch showing the modern world that it withstood the great war of the French and Indian conflict, fought with bow and arrows, flintlocks, and cannonballs. Returning to Cheboygan at 6:00 that evening, one could not help notice the happy smiling faces as they trudged up the gang plank to the shore."

He added, "Hoot McGraw was in charge of guest comfort. George McCash was acting dockmaster when the Lollypop landed."

Governor Williams also visited the Straits area that September to kick off Democratic election campaigns. About the same time, Vacationland was finally sent to the shipyard after eight months of constant operation. The big ferry ran down Lake Huron in less than 24 hours on September 16. Leaving the Straits at 3 p.m., she nosed her bow into the dock at River Rouge about noon the next day. En route, she had made speeds up to 17.2 miles per hour. When she arrived, the shipyard presented Captain Nelson with a twin-beak cap reading "captain" both the fore and aft, in honor of his double-ended ship. Crewmembers noted, now they couldn't tell whether Nelson was coming or going. But they suggested that with the cap, he wouldn't have to turn around when he changed pilothouses on the Straits run.

With plenty of extra time during the five days at the shipyard, some crewmembers took their autos along so they could go uptown to movies. Some attended the Tigers-Yankees baseball game their first night near Detroit. Others spent their time writing letters, playing cards, and listening to the radio.

Since the drydock at River Rouge was occupied, Vacationland was next sent overnight across Lake Erie to Ashtabula, Ohio, for a hull inspection. Two freighter pilots observed her lights passing in the darkness and remarked over the radio, "Hey John, we just passed something white on our starboard, over."

"Hello Mac. Say, you better take another look at that white thing. You didn't pass it, you met it. That's that two-ended ice crusher from up Straits way. Do you hear me Mac? Over."

"Hello John. This is Mac's wheelsman. He received your message OK, then he took off in a rush saying he needed a couple aspirins."

The next morning, Vacationland arrived in Ashtabula, where she navigated a narrow river into the drydock. There her wheels, shafts, and troublesome bearings were at last removed and inspected. But after the modifications of January, the bearings were found to be in nearly perfect shape, so they were reinstalled, instead replaced by the costly

new bearings Nordberg had ordered. The new ones were retained as spares, should they ever be needed. The work in Ashtabula took 10 days, with Christiansen referring to the city as "the Port of Lost Souls." The crew had left their cars in River Rouge, so they were unable to get far from the ship to visit any movie houses, or bars.

Meanwhile, the officers of the City of Cheboygan witnessed quite a show at the Straits. One late September Monday evening the ferry was crossing southbound about 15 minutes out of St. Ignace on its seven o'clock run. Captain Pat Gallagher had just reached the pilothouse when the other officers and lookout pointed up Lake Michigan to a flaming object they saw. Gallagher described it as, "sort of a magnesium flare high in the sky. It grew larger as it fell, and appeared to turn orange as it hit the water, about 25 miles west of us." Someone suggested it might be a meteorite or even a flying saucer. The ferry notified the Civil Air Patrol and the State Police, but nothing was ever found. Noting the local newspaper coverage, which reached him aboard Vacationland, "Scoop" Christiansen observed, "Maybe it was the stork circling about St. Ignace. Engineer Swede Swanson is sweating it out here, hoping he beats it back there."

But before returning to the Straits, Vacationland again returned to River Rouge to pick up the crew's cars and for a complete inspection prior to hunting season and another winter on the ice-clogged Straits run. The ferry also hosted tours of local cub scouts and a very surprised 13 year old school boy.

Bill Nickels of Dearborn's Lowery High School was assigned to write an essay on something of interest, and decided to do it about the Vacationland. He wrote to Capt. Nelson, asking for a few details of the ship, but instead of a letter back from the captain, he got a telephone call. On short notice, Nelson sent a car to pick up the beaming 8th grader for a trip to River Rouge and a private tour. He and a classmate got first-hand details of the ship's operations, including dinner in the officers' mess as Nelson's guests.

There was one accident aboard before the ship left for the Straits. Messman Donald Poirier was hospitalized with first-degree burns when steam in the hot water line to the coffee urn exploded. Fortunately, he recovered quickly and soon rejoined the crew.

Sixty-year-old Arthur Hayward, chief steward on the City of Cheboygan, wasn't so lucky. He was found dead of a heart attack in his cabin aboard the vessel just after midnight on October 19.

About the same time, members of the Mackinac Bridge Authority got some good news. While Chairman Brown had not been able to sell bridge revenue bonds to the RFC, an investment banking firm, B. J. Van Ingen & Co. of New York, felt there was enough potential to underwrite the bridge project. Van Ingen had participated in financing the Pennsylvania Turnpike and had just successfully sold $326 million in bonds to finance a turnpike across Northern Ohio. But now it needed to sell bonds to assure that bridge construction could begin at the Straits.

Fall weather continued to attract large loads of ferry riders, with September 1952 traffic up by about 2.5%. The yearly increase was 16.3% by the start of October, or over 90,000 more vehicles than the year before. Hunting season looked to be even bigger, with as many as 50,000 expected in mid-November.

As Republicans rejoiced over the nationwide landslide that brought Dwight Eisenhower to the White House and returned William Ellsworth to the Senate, Van Ingen and the Bridge Authority invited a group of potential investors to the Straits to witness the huge lines of hunters waiting to board the ferries. The Authority hoped that wind, waves, and swelling traffic jams would tax the ferries and naturally sell the need to bridge the Straits. But nature didn't cooperate.

As the hunters descended on Mackinaw City, the sun shone, barely a ripple stirred in the water, and with the Vacationland swallowing six lanes of cars at a time, the backups were nearly non-existent. While more than 19,500 cars were taken northbound at the start of the season, an increase in traffic of 23.5%, in reality, it was only about 3,000 cars more than in 1951. The ferries set a new one-day record of vehicles transported, over 8,700 cars. Still, the Vacationland's 150-car capacity and quick turnarounds, and the new St. Ignace docks with shorter runs for the other boats, easily made up for the difference. Cars drove on the boats almost as fast as they arrived on the docks.

Then, to make matters worse for the Authority, Commissioner Charles Ziegler appeared at the Straits, and, as a member ex-officio of the Bridge Authority, had to be invited to the farewell dinner for the potential investors. In his conversations with guests, and in his after dinner remarks, Ziegler again made it clear that while he was all in favor of bridging the Straits, there were many other projects that also needed financing in Michigan. The investors went home unexcited, and the Van Ingen firm, along with the rest of the authority, went back to their drawing boards.

Ziegler had come to St. Ignace in response to a new development in the ferry fleet. Fed up with no reaction from the Highway Department or the Civil Service Commission to their requests for improved working conditions, and the Commission's steadfast refusal to engage in collective bargaining, the unlicensed crewmembers dumped their affiliation with the A. F. of L., and, on November 1, formed their own Association of State Ferry Employees, electing Robert E. Cronan, another of Fred Cronan's sons, as president. Cronan then hired Francis B. Criqui, a local attorney, to represent the association in legal matters.

Criqui wrote the Highway Department requesting an immediate 15% cost-of-living raise, time off instead of the 7-day workweek, scheduled vacations, elimination of step-increases in pay, and the return of banked time for his clients. If his requests weren't met, there was speculation the crews might strike, or at least stage a work slowdown, delaying boats in the crush of hunting season. Ziegler rushed to the Straits to confer with Superintendent George Lloyd and Assistant Superintendent Phil Case and to speak with Criqui in person. He and Arthur Rasch of the Civil Service Commission emphasized that any labor action in violation of state law would be met with immediate termination.

Criqui responded that he had heard of no plans for any job action at that time, and the hunting season traffic crossed the Straits both ways, unimpeded. Ziegler stayed to personally supervise the operation, and the count for the entire month of November ended up 9,000 cars higher in 1952. One person missed part of it, however. Swede Swanson took four days off in November to recover from the shock of his wife delivering a 12-pound baby girl.

As the hunters headed home for the holidays, the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau estimated that, in 1952, tourists and travelers in Upper Michigan spent at least $4 million a month. The Vacationland tied up for two weeks for its annual Coast Guard inspection and winter fit-out. And one by one, the other boats prepared for winter lay up.

As in previous years, lay-up consisted of cleaning, servicing and winterizing the boats for the cold weather and ice ahead. Everything had to be "ship shape" so there would be less work for spring fitout. One of the last tasks before going home was closing the galley, which still fed everyone while they worked onboard. Then, most remaining stores were transferred from the steamboats to the Vacationland.

But some supplies found their way to private use, and the winter lay-up was a particularly good time for things to be smuggled ashore. The ferry fleet's cooks fed their crews very well. The food was always plentiful, tasty, and well prepared. No one was ever expected to go hungry while working onboard a Michigan State Ferry. But some crewmembers apparently thought that policy should extend to their families at home, too.

In the Depression, it was often said that ferry workers' dogs ate better than many non-employees' families, thanks to the "doggy bags" the men took home. The bags weren't just meal leftovers, however. Often they contained raw meat, fresh vegetables, and dairy products.

Astory is told about a crewmember who, just before going home at season's end, was asked to help clean out the walk-in cooler aboard one ferry. Bringing his personal gear to the galley with him, he went to work packing food items to move to other boats, discarding some items and cleaning his way to the back of the cooler. But there he found a large tub of fresh butter, something his wife would love in place of those "lower priced spreads." Making sure nobody saw him, he tried to conceal it in his sea bag. But since it was a large tub, all his personal gear no longer fit. Looking around, he found a paper shopping bag, stuffed the excess clothing in, and headed out the door.

Walking briskly from the galley, he nearly collided with the captain in the passageway. The Old Man was also heading ashore for the season and carrying his own bag of gear. The two exchanged pleasantries for a moment, and noticing the clothing in a paper bag, the captain inquired about the sea bag's contents. Thinking fast, the hand figured he'd better be somewhat honest.

"Its a tub of rancid butter sir," he replied. "I'm taking it ashore to dispose of it."

Doubting the cook would stock rancid butter, the captain put his own bag down.

"Let me see that," he said.

The crewman dutifully set down his bag and watched in horror as the Captain reached in and took a taste.

"This butter seems all right to me," the captain said. "I think you better put it back."

The crewman reluctantly agreed.

"Very well, carry on," said the captain, again hoisting his own bag. The crewmember watched as the officer turned smartly on his heel and threw the bag over his shoulder. As it swung, the drawstrings came open and a large frozen turkey tumbled across the deck at their feet.

In the course of winterizing the ships, foodstuffs weren't the only things not to go to the other vessels still in service. Toilet paper, soap, towels, coffee mugs, silverware, and even bed linens often made it to crewmembers' homes, along with a miscellany of tools, equipment, and supplies. Many regarded it as just an extension of their onboard benefits, carried over through the winter.

One item in high demand, and often in short supply, was paint. There is a dichotomy between painting a ship white, and powering it by burning black-as-night, smokebelching coal. At every opportunity throughout the summer, work details were assigned to scrub the ships from stem to stern to remove soot from decks and benches, railings, and any surfaces where the grime might accidentally foul a passenger's wardrobe. It was a never ending battle, and a thankless job. When the grime could no longer be scrubbed off, it was painted over. Five-gallon buckets of gleamingwhite paint arrived on the Mackinaw City dock from downstate paint suppliers like clockwork, to be transported across to the St. Ignace warehouse for use whenever needed.

But much of it was applied elsewhere. St. Ignace and Mackinaw City are both communities of wellkept, cozy white clapboard homes. In the days of wooden ferry superstructures, some of them were white because that was the color of the ferries.

One quartermaster observed his ship's supply of 5-gallon pails being delivered to the long Mackinaw City pier and dispatched a crewmember to inventory the delivery while the boat was resting in the dock. Just before sailing, the crewmember reported they had received 55 cans.

"Good," the quartermaster replied as the ferry cast off. "When we get back next trip, I want you to count it again!" The crewmember protested mildly, but did as he was told, discovering this time, there were only 51 five-gallon cans on the dock. "But where could four cans go so quickly?" He asked. The mystery was solved when the crew noticed there was only one big, burly traffic director working that day, the only man on the dock capable of lugging four heavy five-gallon paint cans the length of a quarter-mile pier to his car trunk in the time of just one round trip.

Sometimes the mysteries weren't resolved so quickly. In the years leading up to the Depression, the technology used to prepare and mix paint changed, along with the uses for it. Steel ships required different paint in harsh winter climates than wooden ones. Steel expands and contracts more in temperature extremes than wood, so for the paint to continue to adhere, chemists developed formulas that would expand and contract at the same rates. The new paint was delivered to the ferries to keep them looking better longer.

In those days, large quantities of paint had disappeared. Then it took until winter for the culprits to be found. It had been a cold winter, causing people to heat homes more to stay warm. It was also a winter in which paint had peeled off any number of freshly spruced up houses in huge, expanding and contracting sheets.

The ships galleys were communal gathering places for family members who had come aboard to visit their husbands and fathers while they worked such long hours. Dockworkers also enjoyed the galleys. Many would come aboard, grab a sandwich or a cup of coffee while the boat was in the dock, and then go back to their jobs. The trick was to get off the boat again before it left the dock.

Normally, officers on the bridge would call over the public address system to cast off the lines, giving visitors in the know a scant few minutes to cross the ramp as the lines were hauled aboard. Sometimes a toot on the horn served the same purpose. But to play a practical joke on the visitor, sometimes only hand signals and other silent communications were used. The unsuspecting "guest" would look up to realize the boat was moving compared to the shore and find that by then it was too late. Unless they wanted to take a swim, they were trapped onboard for the duration of a round trip, usually about two to three hours while the boat cycled over and back. Over the years, dozens of friends, enemies, relatives, vendors, and even complete strangers were "shanghaied" this way.

At least one Michigan State Trooper was shanghaied twice in the same afternoon. That summer, with lines of cars snarling routes to and from the terminals, extra state policemen were assigned to the docks for traffic control. Some of the officers also made themselves at home with meals from the galleys. Since they were state employees, and they were working there, no one seemed to mind. The problem was, one officer continued to come aboard for lunch that fall, even when he was no longer assigned there.

Each day around lunchtime, he'd pull up on the dock and park his cruiser near the slip as the Vacationland came in to land. As soon as it was secure, he'd walk aboard where he knew he'd have 10 to 15 minutes to sit, talk with his friends in the galley, and set himself up with lunch. His "friends" watched the practice day after day and finally decided something had to be done. Most of the crew was in on the plan to shanghai the trooper the next afternoon.

Sure enough, as the Vacationland came in to land, he parked on the dock and came aboard. But this time, the hands on the cardeck were ready. They efficiently unloaded and loaded the ferry with greater dispatch, and the boat was quickly ready to sail. By prearranged signal, the captain silently ordered the lines cast off and the ferry gained speed as the propellers caught hold. A long, startling blast on the Leslie Typhon signaled another trip was underway.

The trooper realized what had happened but was a gentleman and didn't say a thing. Taken for an unexpected two-hour ride, there was nothing he could do except sit, enjoy his lunch, and the ride. He said nothing about his predicament all the way over and back. In fact, he apparently said nothing about it even as he walked up the ramp to leave the boat. In a hurry to get to the two-way radio in his cruiser still parked on the dock, he began walking as soon as the ramp was down. This was not unusual, as crewmen moving laundry hampers and bringing supplies onboard often did the same thing. What was unusual is that halfway up the ramp he turned and gave the captain in the wheelhouse an obvious gesture.

But Capt. Nelson was also ready. He motioned to two deckhands coming onboard with a large laundry hamper the trooper hadn't noticed. Without a word, they lifted him, tossed him inside, rolled the hamper back onboard, and then sat on the lid until the boat was once again safely away from the dock. The trooper never tried to mooch lunch on the ferries again.

Ferry workers, crewmembers, and officers were all individuals, but like sailors everywhere on the Great Lakes, they profess to be hard working, hard drinking, hard fighting men. Perhaps they were. Tales are told of fistfights, barroom brawls, and drunken rowdiness. Fortunately, there was a policy of not coming to work drunk, and alcohol was prohibited aboard the boats.

That didn't stop some sailors, however. One engineer on the Vacationland would always start his shift cheerfully sober, yet go home after work "several sheets to the wind." It got to the point where coworkers noticed, and concerned for their shipmate and their own safety, they took the news to the captain. Nelson confronted the engineer, who denied everything. Yet over time, the captain also noticed the telltale odor of booze on the departing engineer's breath.

Confronted again, the engineer agreed to be searched when he came to work. Of course, no alcohol was found. Time after time, the officers randomly checked the engineers bags, his gear, his coat pockets, even going so far as to pat the man down. No booze was ever found. It became a regular game, one that lasted for months.

The mystery of how he could get drunk on a dry ship while at work was only solved sometime later, and quite by accident. Each year the ships mates conducted a thorough inventory of all the equipment, supplies, and gear onboard their vessel. The process was quite time consuming and involved an inspection of just about every room, passageway, and void space onboard.

One of the items checked was the bank of pressurized cylinders of welding gases, oxygen, and carbon dioxide used for starting the engines. The bottles were as tall as a man and kept in an unlocked, fenced-in enclosure in one of the propeller shaft alleys. As he counted the cylinders inside, the mate accidentally knocked one over and it clattered to the deck with a loud bang. The bottle began to hiss, and fearing he'd broken the valve, the mate removed the srew-on cap to inspect it. His discovery made the mate remove cap after cap, where time after time, he found the same thing. Under each cover he found a shiny fresh can of beer, concealed there on a different shift by one of the engineer's coworkers. The discovery certainly explained why that particular engineer had a penchant for frequently checking the shaft bearings.

In addition to the normal holiday greetings from every department head, the December issue of the Hy- Lighter, the Highway Department's in-house employee magazine, described functions of the State Ferries Division. That report is interesting, as the ferries reached their zenith in fleet size and operating capabilities.

Under the superintendent, the ferries had two principal operating groups, vessel personnel and shore people. The vessel personnel ran the boats under Coast Guard rules and other federal regulations. Each crewmember was required to posses the appropriate documents for his position. The Coast Guard assigned the number of employees on each vessel.

Shore employees included the administrative section, the maintenance section, the dock section, the warehouse section, and the fueling section. The maintenance section, under the supervision of the shore engineer, did recurring repairs on the ships and docks not performed by vessel personnel. Special jobs were also farmed to the Highway Department's Bridge Maintenance Division and outside contractors.

The dockworkers, under supervision of dockmasters on each side, handled the lines to dock the vessels, lowered the aprons, did most traffic control and parking, and did all sanitary work on the docks, such as cleaning the restrooms.

Under supervision of the storekeeper, the warehouse section purchased, inventoried, and stored all the supplies needed to keep the ferries running, the crews fed, and the ships and docks maintained. The fueling section loaded coal aboard the steamboats and maintained the fuel oil storage installation for the Vacationland. Pursers and cashiers under supervision of the administrative section handled tolls, fare collection, and all accounting. The administrative section also handled crew assignments, ship scheduling, and reports sent to the Highway Department offices in Lansing.

Those reports showed that 1952 broke all previous traffic records. There had been 794,516 vehicles carried, an increase of 16.2% over 1951. George Bishop of the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau estimated traffic and tourism would continue to set records in 1952 and expressed "nothing but optimism" among resort owners and tourism officials across the Upper Peninsula.

The ferries remained on a twoboat, 90-minute schedule through the 1952 holidays. Then, with winter closing in, the Vacationland was left to go it alone.

Next week: A Labor of Love

Copyright 2007 by Les Bagley. All rights reserved.

If you have ferry stories, related photographs, or information you would like to share, please contact the author, Les Bagley, via e-mail at les@divco.org or through the newspaper office.