Marine City High School - Mariner Yearbook (Marine City, MI)

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storms as well as our freighters of the present time. Neither did they have the lights to guide them, nor the machinery to load and unload them. It took the schooners about three weeks to go from Buffalo to Chicago. Now a freighter will make it in about four days. Our largest- freighters of today carry from 350,000 to 375,000 bushels of grain, which is loaded on in from three to four hours and unloaded in about six hours. There are two different kinds of freighters today, the common freighter and the whaleback, or pig boats, as they are called. These whalebacks have a bow shaped like the nose of a pig, and are just about round so the waves will wash right over them. Then there is one freighter, the William McDougall, which has a bow like the common freighter, but the rest of her is like the whaleback. The passenger boats of today which operate on the Great Lakes and connect- ing waters are very fast and have the very best of accommodations. The White Star Line, which has been carrying on the passenger service between Port Huron and Detroit, has sold out, but we are to have a new company operating boats on the same route. The largest of the passenger boats to be made for service on the Great Lakes are the Greater Detroit and the Greater Buffalo, which were built at the Great Lakes Shipyard at Ecorse, just below Detroit. They are over six hundred feet long and have as many staterooms as the Leviathan. New types of boats and engines are constantly being turned out, so it is im- possible to tell what is going to be invented next. Last year Henry Ford turned out two boats, operated entirely by electricity, which can be heard coming a mile away. What will be the next kind of boat that will be as great an improvement over the present type? 17

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Steamboats used wood for fuel instead of coal as they do now; consequently there were many wood docks along the rivers. The wood wouldn’t last as long as the coal, nor could they carry such a large amount. Another phase of early sailing on these rivers and lakes pertains to passenger and ferry boats. The first steamboat to carry passengers up the St. Clair river was the Walk-ln-The-Water, in the summer of 1819. The first passenger boat to run regularly between Detroit and Desmond (now Port Huron), was the Argo, in 1830. In 1840, Captain Samuel Ward, of Newport, placed the Huron on the river route, with Captain Eber B. Ward, also of Newport, as master of the boat. After this time regular passenger service between Detroit and Port Huron was established. The ferries which were operated at Newport ran across Belle river instead of St. Clair river. The fares were as follows: six cents for each person; man and horse, nine cents; horse and carriage, one shilling. Louis Chartier received the first license to run a ferry across Belle river in 1823. When the towns on the Canadian shore began to flourish, they began operating ferries across the St. Clair river. Quite a few strange sights have passed up the St. Clair river of late years — that is, strange to this generation of people. Among these was that of a dead whale which was dragged up the river in 1893. The men who were dragging it stopped back of where the Edison plant now is, and exhibited it for two or three days. The inside of the whale was furnished like a room, and they charged an admission to go down into it. In the same year three ships, exact duplicates of the boats in which Columbus came across the Atlantic, sailed up the river. These same boats, or boats like them, were towed up the river about seven years ago. Many boats have burned along the river, among them the Str. Wolf, which burned while making her last trip of the season. Two lives were lost. The Gettysburg burned while being repaired at Kenyon’s Shipyard. She was re- built and used on the ocean by the United States Government during the World War. The Tampa and Aztec, both very old boats, burned to the water’s edge at the mouth of Belle river during the past year. More boats have been built in Marine City than any other town in the county. Samuel Ward, of this town, built the St. Clair, the first of many built at Marine City by the Wards. Among the shipyards were those owned by Morley Brothers and by McLouth. Several ocean boats were built for the United States Govern- ment during the war at the McLouth shipyard. Only one steel boat has been built in Marine City, the Oliver H. Perry, a large steel fishing tug being built at the McLouth shipyard about three years ago. Shipbuild ing in the county has died out since steel ships are being used instead of the wooden ones. Sailing today is a pleasure compared with what it was thirty or forty years ago, for the ships were smaller and built of wood, hence they couldn’t stand the 16

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THE FUTURE OF MARINE CITY By Reuben Prange Much may be said regarding the disadvantages of a small town like Marine City. In fact, too much may be said. But Marine can boast of advantages that are not common to towns of its size. One of Marines greatest assets is the beautiful St. Clair river. More ships pass through this strait than through the Panama or Suez Canals. And Marine is a marine town — its men are sailors engaged in the world’s greatest movement of commerce. There are shipyards close to the city to take care of the demand for repairs to these great boats. The river also gives Marine the opportunity of being a resort town of the first class. Every summer the geniality and hospitality of the people attract an increasing number of outsiders to spend their leisure hours in Marine. The fish- ing, too, is wonderful. No city can boast of a better location for angling than Marine. This has brought many a disciple of Izaak Walton back again and again for just one more successful catch. Marine has transportation facilities which are not common to towns of like size. It has adequately taken care of the growing need for better streets and better fire protection. It has a pure water supply system. In this age of speed, of progress, of growth, which has done so much for Detroit, our cosmopolitan city to the south, we shall soon feel the greater influence of the big industries at our very door. Detroit is the most rapidly growing city in the world, thanks to the automobile industry. It is safe to say that within the next decade or two it will have spread out much farther than it has the decade before. Even now Marine is contributing a share of business to the world s greatest auto center. And the fact that the live men of Detroit are trying to make that city the aviation center of the United States will greatly add to this spreading influence. Deroit is what it is today because the men of that city had vision. And it would profit Marine if its men, too, had vision. Because of the unfortunate centralization of labor and wealth of the great factories now so common, Henry Ford desires to build many small ones to replace them. Marine is just as good, or better than any other town as the site of such a factory, and it also is a very fine residential city. With the sailors busy only nine months a year, an industry like this would provide for work the remaining time. Wide awake citizens should do their utmost to induce manufacturing interests to come here. Many people object to making Marine more of a manufacturing center be- cause of the foreigners the change will bring, for we have prided ourselves on the stand we have taken towards the foreigner and negroes and the way that stand has been enforced. But after all, is this not false pride? It is undemocratic and un- American. History shows that the main reason why America has been so prog- ressive is because of its mixed races — because it is the melting pot of the world. 18