Paddlewheeler St. Louis

[William Lafferty]

The St. Louis was a fairly typical combination freight and passenger vessel, built 1844 by Hubben at Perrysburg, Ohio, 190 x 27.5. Here's an image from the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary Collection:

[Mr Link]

Since she sank in 1852, its highly unlikely that she was a railroad ferry. George Hilton's book "The Great Lakes Car Ferries" lists the International of 1857 as the first car ferry on the Great Lakes. In 1852 there weren't that many railroads in North America and most were not interchanging cars. http://oldrailhistory.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=225
In fact, many were still being built to their own unique gauge so car interchange was impractical.

More than likely the cars were cargo. Perhaps (pure speculation) coming from Detroit, since the city eventually became one of the largest suppliers of railroad cars in the late 1800's.

[Rob]

In Today in Great Lakes History the paddlewheeler St. Louis is mentioned as having capsized and sunk off Kelley's Island in Lake Erie carrying a load of railcars. Does anyone know, was she a railcar ferry, or was that merely her cargo on that particular trip?