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SS Willis B. Boyer Maritime Museum
The SS Willis B. Boyer, was a
lake freighter that was a commercial vessel on the Great Lakes for
most of the 20th century and is now in the process of being restored
to be used as a museum ship in Toledo, Ohio. July 1st, 1911, a
little before noon, there were hundreds of people standing on the
shores of the Great Lakes, and on the vessels in the Ecorse,
Michigan shipyard, in the shadow of steel and smoke. These people
had come to the area to see history in the making at the Great Lakes
Engineering Works, with a ship slowly sliding down the docks to the
water; the Col. James M. Schoonmaker was on her way. Gretchen V.
Schoonmaker would christen the ship named in honor of her father, a
Civil War hero, and railroad industry innovator. Sliding down the
ways, the steel monster, would become the world's biggest bulk
freighter, nicknamed "the queen of the lakes". Besides from being
huge, the Schoonmaker showed a bit of elegance that wasn't normal
for ships of freight, which would be the showpiece of her owner,
William P. Snyder, as well as his flagship for the fleet that would
be built. The vessel would give such elegant passenger
accommodations that it would be rivaled against outstanding
transatlantic steamships like the Olympic and Lusitania. On her
first trip, the behemoth freighter would carry 12,650 tons of coal
from Toledo to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and would be the beginning of a
great number of voyages. The Schoonmaker would retain her crown from
July 1, 1911 to April 14, 1914, making many tonnage records for rye,
coal and iron ore cargoes. The ship would be the widest until 1927,
and the most regal for the rest of her career. The Schoonmaker would
be leased to the Wilson Marine Transit Co. in 1965, and it looked
like her illustrious career with the Shenango Furnace Co. was at an
end; but the vessel was returned to the Shenango fleet in 1966 and
continued to sail under their flag until 1969, when they liquidated
all their assets. In 1969, she was bought by the Interlake Steamship
company and chartered to the Republic Steel Corporation, and renamed
the Willis B. Boyer in honor of the president and CEO. In 1972, the
Boyer would be sold to one of the most respected and oldest fleets
on the lake, the Cleveland Cliffs Steamship Co. In 1972, as the
Boyer set sail under the flag of the Cleveland Cliffs company, she
was actually starting the final period of her sailing. Once hailed
as the world's biggest freighter, the Boyer was now dwarfed by the
technologically improved self-unloading 1000 foot freighters of the
1970s. However, the ship was still cared for by sailors and marine
buffs, so she continued to sail deeper into history with every trip,
since she personified the Golden Age of the Great Lakes shipping,
and by 1980, she was docked at the Toledo Frog pond, for the last
time and looked at an uncertain future. The Cleveland Cliffs
steamship company, now more than a century old, and in the midst of
a great decline in tonnage commitments, in 1984, stopped operations.
In 1986, the Boyer would be saved from the scrap heap after she was
purchased by the city for a museum ship. Somehow, fate still has a
hold on her, as she is docked at International Park, in the same
location where she had loaded her first cargo in 1911, and is now
the biggest museum ship on the inland seas, bringing thousands of
visitors each year.
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