Wilfred Sykes on the St

Number 302 • summer 2017 PowerT HE M AGAZINE OF E NGINE -P OWERED V ESSELS FRO M T HEShips S T EA M SHI P H IS T ORICAL S OCIE T Y OF A M ERICA ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Messageries Maritimes’ three musketeers 8 Sailing British India An American Classic: to the Persian steamer Gulf 16 Post-war American WILFRED Freighters 28 End of an Era 50 SYKES 36 n Wilfred sykes on the St. Marys River in 2003 as a self- unloader. – Roger LeLievre photo. A Classic American Steamer WILFRED SYKES By Mark Shumaker AS DEFINED, CLASSIC MEANS O WRITE AN ACCURATE HISTORY OF WILFRED Sykes, you must first understand the history of “historically memorable” and “serving as Inland steel and the fleet of ships that it would a standard of excellence.” In sports, it’s own one day. Inland steel dates to 1893, when a foreman of the defunct Chicago steel Works baseball. For dessert, it’s apple pie. When attempted to produce steel with its remaining you talk about cars, it’s the beautiful ’57 assets on a small site in Chicago Heights, Illinois. appropriate financing was secured Chevy. Pertaining to the vessels sailing from Cincinnati financier Joseph block and a group of investors. the Great Lakes, that title belongs to the Tthe group incorporated Inland steel Company in October 1893, immediately purchased the assets of Chicago steel Works and Wilfred Sykes. this unassuming, 67-year- began production in early 1894 on this small plot of land. old vessel, once the largest and fastest on WHILE SEARCHING FOR AN AREA of Chicago to build a permanent steel plant, Inland steel found that the closest available land was the Great Lakes, has survived economic in Lake County, Indiana. that location was desirable because of ups and downs, mergers and acquisitions its low cost, proximity to Lake michigan, potential labor force, and the modernization of the american plentiful water supply and access to road, railway and water transportation. In short, the area was a perfect location to assemble fleet all while earning its place as a classic. raw materials and distribute the final products. On march 26, 36 • summer 2017 PowerShips 1901, Inland steel Company accepted an offer from the Lake conjunction with an economic downturn. the vessels purchased michigan Land Company of 50 acres of free land with access to by Inland steamship were the modern Arthur H. Hawgood and W. Lake michigan, located 20 miles from downtown Chicago in the R. Woodford, which were renamed Joseph Block and N. F. Leopold, suburb of east Chicago, Indiana. In addition to the land, Lake respectively. When the vessels entered service, the modest Inland michigan Land Company agreed to construct a harbor that would steamship Company had a combined capacity of 21,000 tons be known as Indiana Harbor. For its part, Joseph block’s Inland per trip. through its management agreement, Inland’s vessels steel agreed to build and construct a steel mill and docks. carried much of its own ore, stone and coal cargoes, but a In 1902, InLand SteeL Began operating a newly constructed significant portion of its needs were hauled by vessels chartered open-hearth furnace, and in 1906 it began operating a new and owned by Hutchinson & Company. blast furnace and receiving raw materials through the docks at Indiana Harbor. Due to the growth in and around Indiana Inland Steel’s Growth Harbor, the federal government took possession of the harbor teady growth contInued for InLand. durIng the chaotIc and connected Indiana Harbor ship Canal in 1910 and SWorld War I years, the company reached a million tons of immediately began federal improvements. the area continued steel production while employing 7,000 workers. the company to grow and become an important industrialized suburb of had always been considered innovative, and, by 1926, Inland’s Chicago, housing the steel and tube Company of america, operation became the first domestic steel plant to be entirely standard Oil of Indiana, united states Gypsum and other powered by electricity, which provided more efficiency, heavy industries. Inland steel’s docks, with its consistency and safety. Fueling its growth, Inland unloading cranes and ever-increasing steel’s Indiana Harbor location stockpiles of raw materials, offered many competitive facilitated the organized advantages over the large unloading and storage Pennsylvania steel of iron ore, limestone, mills, including coal and other access to the bulk commodities Chicago market from the mines and and westward quarries throughout the expansion, newer Great Lakes region. facilities that provided aS InLand SteeL grew, the the latest best practices, fledgling steelmaker invested in iron more efficient production and lower ore mines, ensuring itself a source of iron ore n Artist rendering, Inland Steel transportation costs due to its location on Lake that allowed it to reduce costs and increase steel Company, Indiana Harbor michigan, which also eliminated a portion of production. the first was the Laura Iron mine, Works, 1909. – Image courtesy costly rail dependence. located in Northern minnesota, which contained Calumet Regional Archives, aS InLand SteeL grew, it secured additional some of the richest ore deposits of the enormous Indiana University Northwest. leases on northern minnesota’s mesabi range mesabi range. by 1910 the Laura Iron mine was and began mining the bennett, Dunwoody and producing 950,000 tons of iron ore annually that bonnie belle mines. It also procured leases on the was transported to Inland steel at Indiana Harbor. Cuyuna range’s armor mines located west of Lake superior, and iron ore tracks in the marquette, Gogebic and menomonee Inland’s Fleet ranges situated in michigan’s upper Peninsula. this raw iron NLAND STEEL WAS STRATEGIC IN ITS VERTICAL ACQUISITION ore was railed to the ports of Duluth, superior, two Harbors, IOF other properties. this step strengthened the company so ashland and marquette on Lake superior and to escanaba that one day it would become one of america’s industry giants. on Lake michigan for loading into lake vessels for its trip to Inland steel acquired lakes ships that allowed the company to Indiana Harbor. transport much of its own raw materials to Indiana Harbor. aS the coMpany grew, producing 2 percent of america’s Inland steamship Company was created in 1911 as a business steel by 1925, its lakes fleet expanded to keep up with the partnership with Hutchinson & Company, vessel owners and demands of supplying raw materials. american shipbuilding operators with a long history of management experience, to Company’s Lorain, Ohio, yard completed Inland steamship’s purchase and operate a fleet owned by Inland steel. new 621-foot bulker L. E. Block in 1927. the vessel loaded INLAND STEAMSHIP COmpANY immediately acquired two coal in toledo on its inaugural trip and immediately joined vessels from the acme transit Company, which had fallen on Joseph Block and N. F. Leopold, carrying raw materials to Inland hard times because of the expansion of a costly fleet of vessels in steel’s Indiana Harbor facility. PowerShips summer 2017 • 37 with a dock and ship loader. the port was accessed by a railroad Continued Integration spur from the minneapolis, st. Paul and sault ste. marie ontInuIng InLand SteeL’S vertIcaL IntegratIon, SourceS railroad, and operated by Inland Lime and stone Company. Cof limestone and coking coal were acquired during the the first limestone transported from Port Inland was loaded company’s early expansion. It formed the subsidiary Inland aboard Joseph Block on November 14, 1930. In its first full year Lime and stone Company on December 14, 1928, by acquiring of operation the quarry produced more than 1 million tons of the White marble Lime Company, a small plant located in stone, with two-thirds of its production delivered to Inland steel’s michigan’s upper Peninsula eight miles north of Lake michigan. Indiana Harbor plant. Capable of providing high-grade coking Inland steel began constructing the artificial port of Port Inland coal, large reserves of coal were acquired in the Wheelwright, in the spring of 1929, which consisted of a breakwater and harbor Kentucky, and eastern Pennsylvania areas by 1930. the coal was delivered to Indiana Harbor by rail or transported by rail to the coal-loading ports of southern Lake erie, then shipped to Indiana Harbor by lake steamer. WHILE THE GREAT DEPRESSION took a toll on most of america, Inland steel weathered the storm, even investing in a $30 million expansion. Inland steel also acquired Joseph t. ryerson & son, the world’s largest steel warehousing and fabrication company, which allowed the company to provide customers with custom processing, storage and transportation. by 1935 Inland steel produced more than 2 million tons of steel annually and continued generating greater quantities of steel leading up to World War II. to bring the vessels under direct ownership of Inland steel, Inland steamship Company was dissolved in 1935, and the vessels began the 1936 season n Inland Steel Company co-founder Joseph Block standing next to a ship owned entirely by Inland steel. the company expanded its fleet named for him in 1912. – Photo courtesy Calumet Regional Archives, with the purchase of the Philip D. Block, its fourth vessel, from Indiana University Northwest. Hutchinson & Co.’s subsidiary Pioneer steamship Company. n Aerial view, Inland Steel Company, Indiana Harbor Works, 1959. – Photo courtesy Calumet Regional Archives, Indiana University Northwest. 38 • summer 2017 PowerShips INLAND STEEL CONTINUED to be a force in american steelmaking. AS A BEGINNING POINT for the hull design, american ship building at the outbreak of World War II the company employed 14,000 Company began with a cruiser stern modeled after the u.s.

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