SS St. Marys Challenger
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The SS ''St. Marys Challenger'' is a freight-carrying vessel operating on the North American
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
built in 1906. Originally an ore boat, she spent most of her career as a cement carrier when much larger ore boats became common. After a 107-year-long working career as a self-propelled boat, she was converted into a barge and paired with the tug ''Prentiss Brown'' as an articulated tug-barge. Before conversion, she was the oldest operating self-propelled lake freighter on the Great Lakes, as well as being one of the last freight-carrying vessels on the Great Lakes to be powered by steam engines.


Operating history


Steamship

The vessel was launched on February 7, 1906, by Great Lakes Engineering Works in
Ecorse, Michigan Ecorse ( ') is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 9,512 at the 2010 census. Ecorse is part of the Downriver community within Metro Detroit. The city shares a northwestern border with the city of Detroit ...
. The shipyard had received an order to construct a Great Lakes bulk carrier for what was then the booming Minnesota iron ore trade. Soon the large boat, christened ''William P. Snyder'', was shuttling hematite for the Shenango Furnace Company. ''William P. Snyder'' was beginning her working life at the same time as the development of the
assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...
for bolting together consumer goods made with steel, such as
automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...
s. Iron ore boats would have plenty of work to do. ''William P. Snyder'' also carried iron ore to furnaces to make munitions used in
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 ...
and
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. ''St. Marys Challenger'' in 2012, left The lake carrier was originally powered by two
Scotch boiler A "Scotch" marine boiler (or simply Scotch boiler) is a design of steam boiler best known for its use on ships. The general layout is that of a squat horizontal cylinder. One or more large cylindrical furnaces are in the lower part of the boile ...
s. In 1926, the vessel was sold to the Stewart Furnace Co. of Cleveland, OH, being renamed ''Elton Hoyt 2nd''. She was sold again in 1929 to the Youngstown Steamship Co., also of Cleveland, being operated by Pickands Mather & Co. In 1930, she was transferred to Pickands Mather's Interlake Steamship Co. as part of a fleet consolidation. ''Elton Hoyt 2nd'' was repowered in 1950 with a Skinner Unaflow steam engine and two watertube boilers by the Christy Corporation of Sturgeon Bay, WI. Too small by the 1960s to serve as a profitable ore boat, the vessel was laid up at Erie, PA, in 1962. In 1966, she was plucked out of a freshwater boneyard for reconversion and a new life as a
cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...
carrier for the Medusa Portland Cement Co. She was converted to a self-unloading cement carrier by Manitowoc Shipbuilding of Manitowoc, WI. Now based in
Charlevoix, Michigan Charlevoix ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Charlevoix County. The population was 2,348 at the 2020 census. Charlevoix is mostly surrounded by Charlevoix Township, but the two are administered autonomously ...
and named ''Medusa Challenger'', the aging steamship shuttled powdered cement from Northern Michigan to a wide variety of roadbuilding contractors in various port locations on the Great Lakes. In Chicago she acquired a reputation as a "jinx ship" that caused the city's drawbridges to become stuck when they were raised to let her pass, causing long delays to traffic. Such an incident became the setting for the 1977 dramatic film '' Medusa Challenger''. In 1998 the Medusa Corporation was acquired by Southdown Inc., of Houston and the vessel was renamed ''Southdown Challenger''. After two more acquisitions, the vessel became the property of St. Marys Cement Inc. of
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in 2005 and finally renamed ''St. Marys Challenger''. During her second half-century of life the vessel became a favorite of boatwatchers up and down the Great Lakes as a final example of the
rivet A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...
ed steamships of the
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. ''St. Marys Challenger'' was acquired by Port City Marine Services of Muskegon, MI, a subsidiary of the McKee family-owned Sand Products Corporation, who had picked up the contract to haul cement for St. Marys.


Barge

In November 2013 ''St. Marys Challenger'' reached the end of her working life as a self-propelled vessel. She steamed to the Bay Shipbuilding Co. in
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Sturgeon Bay is a city in and the county seat of Door County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 9,646 at the 2020 Census. The city is well-known regionally for being the largest city of the Door Peninsula, after which the county is n ...
, to be cut down to an articulated lake barge pushed by a dedicated
tugboat 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, su ...
. The refitting of the former steamship lake carrier as a barge was described as a work with a cost of more than $10 million. The tug ''Prentiss Brown'' had been built in 1967 at the Gulfport Shipyard in Port Arthur, Texas and worked in Florida, South Carolina, and New York before coming to the Great Lakes in 2008.PRENTISS BROWN
tugboat information.com
The two-element vessel combination resumed the dedicated transport of powdered cement on the Great Lakes. In this trade, it was described in 2019 as making about 30 annual trips to the Port of Chicago. The lake vessel's now-redundant
pilothouse The interior of the bridge of the Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska">RV_Sikuliaq.html" ;"title="Research Vessel ''RV Sikuliaq">Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska file:Wheelhouse of Leao Dos Mares.jpg, Wheelhouse on a tugboat, topp ...
was conserved and, in spring 2015, was donated to the National Museum of the Great Lakes for display in
Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
. Pilothouse restoration work has uncovered the vessel's original name, ''William P. Snyder''. August 9, 2023 - Detroit River - St. Marys Challenger was spotted on the Detroit River. She is still sailing the Great Lakes.


See also

* , operating steam-powered lake freighter * , operating steam-powered passenger ferry


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Marys Challenger SS 1906 ships Great Lakes freighters Ships built in Ecorse, Michigan Merchant ships of the United States Steamships of the United States