Great Lakes Passenger Steamers - History

History

Sources disagree as to which was the first steamboat on the Great Lakes. Some say it was the Canadian built Frontenac (170 feet), launched on September 7, 1816, at Ernestown, Ontario (about 18 miles from Kingston). Others say it was the U.S. built Ontario (110 feet), launched in the spring of 1817 at Sacketts Harbor, New York. It appears that while the Frontenac was launched first, the Ontario began active service first. The Ontario began its regular service in April, 1817, and the Frontenac made its first trip to the head of the lake on June 5.

The first steamboat on the upper Great Lakes was the passenger carrying Walk-In-The-Water, built in 1818 to navigate Lake Erie. It was a success and more vessels like it followed. Steamboats on the lakes grew in size and number, and additional decks were built on the superstructure to allow more capacity. This inexpensive method of adding capacity was adapted from river steamboats and successfully applied to lake-going craft.

The screw propeller was introduced to the Great Lakes by Vandalia in 1842 and allowed the building of a new class of combination passenger and freight carrier. The first of these "package and passenger freighters," Hercules, was built in Buffalo, New York, in 1843. Hercules displayed all the features that defined the type, a screw propelled the vessel, passengers were accommodated in staterooms on the upper deck, and package freight below on the large main deck and in the holds.

Engines developed as well. Compound engines, in which steam was expanded twice for greater efficiency, were first used on the Great Lakes in 1869. Triple-expansion engines, for even greater efficiency, were introduced in 1887 and quadruple-expansion engines, the ultimate type of reciprocating engine for speed, power and efficiency, appeared on the lakes in 1894.

Steamboat lines were established by railroads on the Great lakes to join railheads in the 1850s. This service carried goods and passengers from railroads in the East across the length of the lakes to railroads for the journey West. Railroads bought and built steamship lines to complement railroad services. One such railroad-owned steamship line was formed by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865 to connect their terminals at Buffalo to those of the Northern Pacific Railroad at Duluth, Minnesota. This new line, owned by the Erie and Western Transportation Co., became the well-known Anchor Line.

A significant industry in leisure cruising arose beginning in the late 19th century, often providing large passenger vessels for charter for day trips. Infamous among these are the Eastland, which capsized in the Chicago River in 1914 with the loss of hundreds of lives, and the Noronic, which burned at the wharf in Toronto in September 1949 with the loss of 119 lives. While the ship had been known as the 'Queen of the Great Lakes' it is now also a symbol of the end of passenger cruises on the Great Lakes.

In 1915, the anti-monopoly provisions of section 11 of the Panama Canal Act of 1912, ch. 390, 37 Stat. 560, 566 (August 24, 1912), which prohibited railroads under most circumstances from owning steamships, went into effect. As a result, railroad-owned company fleets were sold to buyers with no ownership interest in railways because under the new law railroads had to divest themselves of their marine divisions on the lakes. Under this divestiture law, The Milwaukee Clipper, for instance, was sold by the Anchor Line along with four other railroad-owned company fleets to the newly formed Great Lakes Transit Corporation. Under this flag, the Clipper carried passengers along her old route until retired in 1970.

• City of Alpena (circa 1942)
• City of Cleveland (circa 1941)