SS Superior City - History

History

The Superior City launched 13 April 1898 in the yards of the Cleveland Ship Building Company (later named the American Ship Building Company) at Lorain, Ohio. The Superior City was a pioneer vessel representing the steady progression of bigger, longer, and stronger craft from the days of ships powered by sails. At her launching, she was the largest vessel ever built on freshwater. The whole town of Lorain crowded the river front to watch her launch.

On April 26, 1909, Dr. Griffin, the local health officer at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan received reports that boats tied up at the Soo Locks had been quarantined and a couple of the lockmen said that they heard that the Superior City had displayed a smallpox sign for a few hours on the previous night. Dr. Griffin boarded the Superior City and had a heated conference in which everyone denied any knowledge of a smallpox sign. Dr. Griffin issued a warning that any misuse of a contagious disease sign would be immediately reported to the Michigan Secretary of State. Shipwreck historian Wes Oleszewski reported, "In the ensuing days, there were far fewer uninvited guests aboard any of the boats tied up at the Soo Locks, especially the Superior City."

The Superior City sailed the lakes for twenty-two years before she came to an untimely end in the worst collision ever occurring on Lake Superior.

Read more about this topic:  SS Superior City

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)