SS Christopher Columbus

SS Christopher Columbus

The SS Christopher Columbus was an American excursion liner on the Great Lakes, in service between 1893 and 1933. She was the only whaleback ship ever built for passenger service. The ship was designed by Alexander McDougall, the developer and promoter of the whaleback design.

Columbus was built between 1892 and 1893 at Superior, Wisconsin, by the American Steel Barge Company. Initially, she ferried passengers to and from the World's Columbian Exposition. Later, she provided general transportation and excursion services to various ports around the lakes.

At 362 feet (110 m), the ship was the longest whaleback ever built, and reportedly also the largest vessel on the Great Lakes when she was launched. Columbus is said to have carried more passengers during her career than any other vessel on the Great Lakes. After a career lasting four decades, she was retired during the Great Depression and scrapped in 1936 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company at Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Read more about SS Christopher Columbus:  Background and Proposal, Construction and Columbian Exposition, Regular Service, Disposition

Famous quotes containing the words christopher columbus, christopher and/or columbus:

    Christopher Columbus!
    Victor Heerman (1893–1977)

    Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
    In such an hour it may well be,
    Through mist and darkness, light will break,
    And each anointed sense will see.
    —Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867–1900)

    If Columbus was the first to discover the islands, Americus Vespucius and Cabot, and the Puritans, and we their descendants, have discovered only the shores of America.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)