Northwest Steel was a small

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. Little is known of its background or owners, but during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the yard built

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

s for the

United States Shipping Board The United States Shipping Board (USSB) was established as an emergency agency by the 1916 Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729), on September 7, 1916. The United States Shipping Board's task was to increase the number of US ships supporting the World War ...

(USSB). Some 37 of the 46 ships ship built at Northwest Steel were the ''West'' boats, a series of steel-

hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

ed cargo ships built for the USSB on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

as part of the World War I war effort. It was headed by Joseph R. Bowles, who was indicted for bribing a government official in about 1918 and then convicted of contempt of court. He was later described as a "greedy, domineering and difficult person, with no sense of civic responsibility." The first ship built at Northwest Steel was the cargo ship , originally launched on March 31, 1917, as the

Cunard Line Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Berm ...

ship ''Vesterlide'', a British-

flagged Flagging may refer to: *Running out of time on a chess clock *Flagging (tape), a colored non-adhesive tape used in marking objects *Flagging (shipping) of a merchant vessel under the laws of a flag state *The activities of a flagger (disambiguatio ...

ship sunk by German submarine ''U-55'' in January 1918. The final ship built was the tanker ''Swiftwind'', completed in June 1921.

Notable ships built at Northwest Steel

* ordered as ''West Minsi'', cancelled, completed privately as ''Centaurus'', renamed 1930 ''Portmar'', bombed, beached and refloated at Darwin, Australia on 19 February 1942
torpedoed and lost 16 June 1943
* (originally ''Vesterlide'') * SS ''West Celeron'' * Torpedoed and sunk 19 August 1942. * * * * * SS ''West Pocasset'', torpedoed and sunk as ''Chepo'' in January 1942 * * * * * * * * * * * USS ''West Modus'' * *

References

Bibliography

* * * * Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United States History of transportation in Oregon Manufacturing companies based in Portland, Oregon Defunct manufacturing companies based in Oregon Shipbuilding companies of Oregon 1921 disestablishments in Oregon 1910s establishments in Oregon American companies disestablished in 1921 {{US-manufacturing-company-stub