Her story begins on 22 December 1904, in Cleveland, Ohio, at the shipyards of the American Shipbuilding Company. Christened Juniata when launched, she was built for the Anchor Line, the Great Lakes marine division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Her sister ships are the SS Tionesta and SS Octorara.
The ship is 361 feet in length, 45 feet in beam, a depth of 22 feet, with a gross tonnage of 4333 tons. She carried 350 passengers in staterooms at 18 knots. As originally built, she had a riveted steel hull and a magnificent wooden superstructure. For the Pennsylvania Railroad, she carried passengers and freight between Buffalo, New York and Duluth, Minnesota until 1915.
That year, the anti-monopoly Panama Canal Act, which forbade railroads from owning steamships, went into effect. Divesting its marine divisions, the Pennsylvania Railroad sold its Anchor Line along with four other railroad-owned company fleets, to the newly formed Great Lakes Transit Corporation. Under this flag, she carried passengers along her old routes for another 20 seasons. Juniata was laid up in 1937 after the closing of the Chicago World's Fair.
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