Construction and Commercial Service, 1902-1918
Arizonan was launched in 1902 at San Francisco, California, by the Union Iron Works as the commercial cargo ship SS Arizonan for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. She was completed early in 1903 and entered commercial service. Arizonan and her sister ship SS Alaskan—which later served in the U.S. Navy as USS Alaskan (ID-4542)—represented, according to a contemporary account, the "most advanced practice in the construction of ocean-going freighters and ... a most important addition to the American merchant marine." Intended exclusively for carrying freight, Arizonan was designed as a very strong ship with a large stowage capacity.
After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Arizonan came under the control of the United States Shipping Board, which placed her in service under a United States Army account with a U.S. Navy Naval Armed Guard detachment aboard.
Read more about this topic: USS Arizonan (ID-4542A)
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