Pennsylvania Shipyards Inc
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard was a
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 ...
in
Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat, seat of government of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur, Texas, Port Arthur Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, metropo ...
that opened in 1948. The yard is located on an island in the
Neches River The Neches River () begins in Van Zandt County west of Rhine Lake and flows for through the piney woods of east Texas, defining the boundaries of 14 counties on its way to its mouth on Sabine Lake near the Rainbow Bridge. Two major reservoirs, ...
and upstream of the Sabine Pass that grants access to the Gulf of Mexico. The deep-water port shipyard was founded in 1917 as the Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company started as a World War I Emergency Shipbuilding Program yard. In 1922 the Pennsylvania Car & Foundry, of Sharon, Pennsylvania purchased the yard and renamed the yard Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc.. The yard built barges and rail cars and also operated under the name Petroleum Iron Works at the site. For World War II the yard build
tugboats A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...
and barges as part of the emergency shipbuilding program. After the war Bethlehem Steel purchased the yard in 1948 as part for the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard transitioned the yard into a
jackup rig A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit a ...
offshore drilling rig yard. The yard closed in the 1980s, with the rig market collapse. Bethlehem Steel sold the yard in 1989 to Trinity Industries. Trinity Industries purchased a Panamax floating and continued operations. The Panamax floating was moved to New Orleans in 1994. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company purchased the yard in 2006. Chicago Bridge & Iron turned the yard into a fabrication yard. In 2017 Chicago Bridge & Iron Company closed the yard due to damage from
Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest t ...
, ending work for 455 employees. Many of workers were relocated to other Chicago Bridge & Iron sites. The site is now Allegiant Industrial Island Park Campus that opened in 2018.


Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company

Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company (1919-1920) wooden ships: (Cargo ships built for United States Shipping Board for World War I. Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company also operated a 2,500 ton marine railway. *''Swampscott'', Design 1001 Cargo Ship, Oct. 1918 *''Quemakoning'', Design 1001 Cargo Ship, May 1919 *''Oneco'', Design 1001 Cargo Ship, April 1919 *''Angelina'' Design 1001 Cargo Ship, June 1919 *''Awash'' Design 1001 Cargo Ship, completed as a barge *''Shelbank'', Schooner, June 1920, completed as Marie F. Cummins *''Shelby'', Schooner, May 1920, completed as Albert D. Cummins, now rest in mud in the
Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...
.


Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc.

In the interwar period the yard built over 200 vessels, mostly for companies in the oil business, with Texaco being the biggest customer by number of ships. The first war related work came in the form of two C1-A cargo vessels for the Maritime Commission. Apart from 4 minesweepers for the Navy and a handful of ships for private businesses, Pennsylvania produced primarily for the merchant marine with C1-A and C1-M ships the most numerous types of ships built. Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc. (1926-1947) built for World War II: *
YMS-1-class auxiliary motor minesweeper The ''YMS-1'' class of auxiliary motor minesweepers was established with the laying down of ''YMS-1'' on 4 March 1941. Some were later transferred to the United Kingdom as part of the World War II Lend-Lease pact between the two nations. One sh ...
*
Type C1 ship Type C1 was a designation for small cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II. Total production was 493 ships built from 1940 to 1945. The first C1 types were the smallest of the three original M ...
a C1-A and C1-M
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, 71 built. * 71 of 395
Type C1 ship Type C1 was a designation for small cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II. Total production was 493 ships built from 1940 to 1945. The first C1 types were the smallest of the three original M ...
s ** 46 of 65 C1-A ** 24 of 211 C1-M-AV1 ** 1 of 6 C1-M-AV8 * 4 of 95 s ** , , , * Type V ship V4-M-A1 Tugboats * Type N3 ship N3-S-A2 small coastal cargo ship. *
Type R ship The Type R ship is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for World War II refrigerated cargo ship, also called a reefer ship. The R type ship was used in World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Cold War. Type R ships ...
R1-M-AV3, refrigerated cargo ships **Examples: *
SS Kielce SS ''Kielce'' was a Polish-operated cargo ship. She was a Type N3-S-A2 steamship, built in the United States in 1943 as SS ''Edgar Wakeman''. In 1946, while laden with a cargo of munitions, she sank in the English Channel after colliding with ...
Type N3-S-A2 * USS Corduba (AF-32) a R1-M-AV3 Type R ship * USS Kerstin (AF-34) R1-M-AV3 *
USS Lucidor (AF-45) USS ''Lucidor'' (AF-45) was an ''Adria''-class stores ship in service with the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service in 1967 and was lost in 1977. History ''Lucidor'' was laid down under a Maritime Commissio ...
R1-M-AV3 * USS Muscatine (AK-197) C1-M-AV1 Type C1 Ship, *Point Arena, V4-M-A1 Tugboat *Stratford Point V4-M-A1 Tugboat * SS Cape Sable C1-A Cargo, became UN Navy Sangay (AE 10). *
USS Adria USS Adria (AF-30) was an ''Adria''-class stores ship in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1954. She was scrapped in 1977. History ''Adria'' was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 2194) on 27 December 1943 a ...
R1-M-AV3 refrigerated cargo ship


Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard

The ''Beaumont Yard'' was one of the major sources of offshore drilling rigs built in the United States with 72 offshore rigs built at the yard. Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard (1948-1982) built: * Semi-submersible platforms *
Jackup rig A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit a ...
s *Tower Barges * Deck Barges * Drill Barges *Container Barge *Self-Propelled Semisubmersible Drill Rig


Chicago Bridge & Iron Company Beaumont

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company Beaumont (1982-2017) closed the Beaumont yard, called Beaumont Island Park Fabrication Services, in 2017, after the site was flooded due to Hurricane Harvey in September 2017. The sited had fabricated and transport large-scale process modules, shop-built ships and large steel plate subassemblies since 1982. In 2008 Chicago Bridge & Iron Company sold the site to
Port of Beaumont The Port of Beaumont is a deep-water port located in Beaumont, Texas near the mouth of the Neches River. It is the fourth busiest port in the United States according to the American Association of Port Authorities ''U.S. Port Ranking by Cargo To ...
. Port of Beaumont entered into a partnership with Allegiant Industrial to rebuild the 75 acres site.


Allegiant Industrial Island Park Campus

Allegiant Industrial opened the Allegiant Industrial Island Park Campus (2018- ) on the site in October 2018. The site has 500,000 square feet of welding, painting and fabrication space.Allegiant Industrial Island Park Campus
/ref>


See also

*
Beaumont Reserve Fleet The Beaumont Reserve Fleet, was established by act of Congress in 1946, as a component of the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF). The fleet is located in Beaumont, Texas. History In 1946, the US Government excavated 24 million cubic yards of s ...


References

{{Coord, 30.088562, N, 94.093780, W, display=title Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United States Beaumont, Texas 1917 establishments in Texas Bethlehem shipyards