Commercial Iron Works was a manufacturing firm in

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 ...

, United States. Established in 1916, the company is best remembered today for its contribution to America's

Emergency Shipbuilding Program The Emergency Shipbuilding Program (late 1940 – September 1945) was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S. Maritime ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The company was founded in November 1916, by William T. Casey, Otto J. Hoak and Robert Boogs, on a site on the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

just south of the

Ross Island Bridge The Ross Island Bridge is a cantilever truss bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. It carries U.S. Route 26 (Mount Hood Highway) across the river between southwest and southeast Portland. The bridge opened in 1926 and w ...

. Little is known about the company's early years, but it appears to have served diverse markets. For example, it placed a bid for the manufacture of 200 fire hydrants for the City of Portland in 1927, and supplied the high pressure outlet gates for the Unity Dam on the Burnt River near

Baker, Oregon Baker City is a city in and the county seat of Baker County, Oregon, United States. It was named after Edward D. Baker, the only U.S. Senator ever killed in military combat. The population was 10,099 at the time of the 2020 census. History P ...

in 1937. The company is recorded as having built only one ship prior to World War II - a small 140-ton tender for the

US Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi ...

in 1935. The CIW built the 25-ton tugboat Constance J for the Crown Willamette Paper Company. The Constance J was still in service as an active workboat as late as 2017 under the name Diane. Commercial Iron Works established a shipyard on the

Ross Island Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by N ...

site in the early 1940s, which turned out close to 200 small warships during the war, including net layers,

minelayer A minelayer is any warship, submarine or military aircraft deploying explosive mines. Since World War I the term "minelayer" refers specifically to a naval ship used for deploying naval mines. "Mine planting" was the term for installing control ...

submarine chaser A submarine chaser or subchaser is a small naval vessel that is specifically intended for anti-submarine warfare. Many of the American submarine chasers used in World War I found their way to Allied nations by way of Lend-Lease in World War I ...

s, and LCI and LCS

landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. ...

. It also outfitted larger ships built at other yards with armaments. Following the war, the shipyard was acquired in 1946 by another local firm, the

Zidell Machinery and Supply Company The Zidell Companies are a group of family-owned companies based in Portland, Oregon. They include Zidell Marine, a ship construction company which, from 1961 until 2017, specialized in the building of barges, and Tube Forgings of America Inc. I ...

, which was eventually to transform the yard into America's largest

shipbreaking Ship-breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for either a source of parts, which can be sold for re-use, or for the extraction ...

operation. Built for World War II:shipbuildinghistory.com Commercial Iron Works
/ref> * 4 of 29 fleet tugs ** ... * 43 of 343 s * 7 of 18 s *** ... * 56 of M

Landing Craft Infantry The Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) were several classes of landing craft used to land large numbers of infantry directly onto beaches during the Second World War. They were developed in response to a British request for seagoing amphibious assaul ...

** LCI(L)-725 ... LCI(L)-780 * 4 of 32 s ** ... * 6 of 15 s ** ... * 52 of 130 Landing Craft Support ** LCS-26 ... LCS-47, LCS-79 ... LCS-108 * tugs YTM-769 ... YTM-780 * completion of ** AP-92, AP-93, AP-96 (

Western Pipe and Steel Company The Western Pipe and Steel Company (WPS) was an American manufacturing company that is best remembered today for its construction of ships for the Maritime Commission in World War II. It also built ships for the U.S. Shipping Board in World W ...

hulls) ** AK-156, AK-158, AP-133 (Kaiser No. 4 hulls) ** 3 of 45 s ( Todd Tacoma hulls) *** (HMS ''Trumpeter'') *** (HMS ''Trouncer'') *** (HMS ''Arbiter'') ** 3 of 19 s ( Todd Tacoma hulls) *** *** ***

Footnotes

References

Commercial Iron Works World War II construction record

Zidell Waterfront Property
- Staff Report, DEQ Voluntary Cleanup Program (PDF file 3.4 Mbytes). {{coord, 45.49960, -122.66749, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United States Companies based in Portland, Oregon History of transportation in Oregon Shipbuilding companies of Oregon Manufacturing companies established in 1916 1916 establishments in Oregon 1946 disestablishments in Oregon Defunct manufacturing companies based in Oregon