Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Ford Motor Company discontinued their marine operation for similar reasons. Contract someone else to haul the raw materials.

Hausen,

Thanks for the info. Had never heard that before

Erik

steamer41 wrote:I think another fleet that would be interesting to get a fleet history on would be Cleveland Cliffs. I have never heard/read a reason why they shut thier fleet down, and the Steel Company continues to this day. I know the economy was dismal in the early 80's and a lot of ships were sold off

Save for the Edward B. Greene and Walter A. Sterling they had a fleet full of labor-intensive straight-deckers (Champlain, Cadillac, Pontiac, Raymond Reiss, Willis Boyer etc.) and fuel-guzzling, relatively low-capacity saltwater conversions (the C4 triplets, the Victory). The post-1981 cargo float on the lakes had shrunk drastically compared to the late 1970s so there were plenty of more efficient ships in other fleets looking for business. Rather than spend money upgrading and replacing their own vessels they decided to focus on mining and processing, contracting their lakes shipping needs to companies hungry for the business and with modern, efficient vessels. It seems likely that they eliminated a lot of potential future cost with this move.

It's been noted on boatnerd that if their cargo hauling contracts had played out differently during the 1970s they would've ended up building a thousand footer or two. If that had been the case they might have decided to stay in the business longer, although the overarching trend over the last few decades has seen the mining and steel companies less and less directly involved with ownership of rail and marine transportation assets.

Several years ago the MHSD published two volumes and editions of the Ahoy and Farewell books and I'm sure that these had photos and a write-up about the history of some of the ASC and ONCO boats. Also, MHSD published a book on the GLEW Shipyard that was once in River Rouge, MI. and it has every ship built there and I'm sure that there were many ASC and ONCO boats built at GLEW yard.

Columbia/Oglebay Norton published a company newsletter variously called "The Columbia Shipmate", "Oglebay Norton Shipmate" , and "ON On Watch". These newsletters contained articles on the boats and personel in the fleet.

American Steamship Company published a company newsletter called "Soundings". This document contained articles on the boats in the ASC fleet and their personnel.

The annual Red Book listed all the boats in each Great Lakes fleet at the beginning of the season. The Red Books included the basic dimensions of each vessel.

The documents mentioned above are not single source documents but they do present the tye of information you are seeking. Unfortunately, all are not longer being published and olded copies are becoming difficult to find.

William--
Thanks for the detailed info. I am going to try to track down those magazine issues.

John--
Thanks, I will look into that book.

steamer41--
I don't have the volume, but one of Greenwood's "Fleet Histories" books covers Cleveland Cliffs--and I think it is still available at different book vendors.

I think another fleet that would be interesting to get a fleet history on would be Cleveland Cliffs. I have never heard/read a reason why they shut thier fleet down, and the Steel Company continues to this day. I know the economy was dismal in the early 80's and a lot of ships were sold off

John Devendorf's "Great Lakes Bulk Carriers 1869-1985" has a fleet listing and individual vessel info also. listing of the fleet members in its fleet index.

Father Dowling published a Boland & Cornelius fleet list in the *Detroit Marine Historian,* v. 2, no. 2, October 1948. An enlarged version was published in *Telescope* in the early 1960s. His fleet list of the various entities grouped under Columbia Transportation appeared in the *Detroit Marine Historian,* v. 8, nos. 2-3, October and November 1954. B & C owned over eighty vessels of all types between its formation in 1907 and the appearance of Father Dowling's 1948 list, while Columbia Transportation owned 22 when Oglebay Norton formed it in 1935 and 26 when Father Dowling's fleet list was published. It would be virtually impossible to form complete fleet lists from *Namesakes* and the BGSU site, but not impossible to use those sources to provide additions to Father Dowling's original lists.

The ASC book is a useful corporate history, but provides very little in the way of fleet data.

Hello Everyone,

In the book series "Fleet Histories" by Greenwood, I noticed there is no volume with the history of the two fleets I'm most interested in: the American Steamship Company and the Columbia Transportation Division/Oglebay-Norton. (I understand that this is because the author did not do histories of fleets that were still operating while he was publishing those books.)
Does anyone know where to get comprehensive histories of all the ships that were in those fleets? I know the ASC website (and the fleet section of the boatnerd website) has information on the current ASC fleet, but I am interested in past members of both fleets as well as the current members (though I see that CTD/O-N doesn't exist anymore). Also, I have some books myself (Namesakes series, etc.) and know of the BGSU website, so if I was willing to kill a couple days I could probably piece together an "all-time roster" for those fleets myself, but I'm hoping someone here can direct me to some material(s) that already exists that I don't know about--something that puts it all together in one place.
Someone mentioned the book "American Steamship Company: Leader On the Lakes", so I'm in the process of trying to get that book, but any other help would be appreciated.

Thanks!