Shipbuilding in
Chicago has always been tied to the city's status as a port. When Chicago
flourished as a port it was the site of a thriving shipbuilding industry. As
the port has waned so has shipbuilding.
The first ship built
in Chicago, the Clarissa, was begun in the spring of 1835 by Nelson R. Norton, but
was not completed, or launched, until May 18, 1836. The Detroit, Capt. John
Crawford, was built at Milwaukee in 1836-37 for the Chicago trade, at a cost of
$50,000. This vessel was lost off Kenosha, Wisconsin in November, 1837, after only six
months service. Around 1836, an association of the then young, energetic and
enterprising citizens was formed, and they commenced the building of the
steamer James Allen. It was completed in 1838, Capt. C. H. Case having charge
of its construction. The shipyard was on "Goose Island." The Allen
was built to be fast, and to run across Lake Michigan from St. Joseph to
Chicago, in connection with the stage and mail line. Her hull was narrow and
sharp in form, and light in material.' Two powerful, low pressure, horizontal
engines were put on the guards, on the main deck. The boilers were small, and,
on trial, proved to be in sufficient. When the Jim Allen had steam up and
started on her trial trip for St. Joseph, she went out of Chicago at a speed
that pleased, as well as astonished, her owner and designer. The first fourteen
miles were run inside of an hour. Then the engines began to " slow up,
" and the voyage took about ten hours. Every effort was made to keep up
the supply of steam to the two large engines, but the result was the same as
experienced during the outward trip. To use the expression of her commander,
she would run the first thirty minutes "like a skeered dog," then her
speed would gradually slacken to about seven miles an hour, and nothing could
coax her to do any better. For two seasons, notwithstanding the utmost
exertions taken, there was no improvement in the Allen's average rate of speed,
and she was then sold and taken to the lower lakes.
The George W. Dole
was also built by Captain Case, soon after the completion of the James Allen,
and the two ran together over the St. Joseph and Michigan City route. The
former was sunk at Buffalo, in 1856, having previously been changed into a
sailing vessel. These were the first and only steamers built in Chicago
previous to 1842. In 1842 Capt. James Averell established a shipyard, on the
North side, just below Rush street bridge, and very soon after Thomas Lamb
commenced business near the same place. The shipyards of Chicago were now
beginning to present unusual signs of activity. In 1845 there were constructed
the schooners Maria Hilliard, J. Young Scammon, and Ark; in 1846 the barque
Utica, brig Ellen Parker, and schooner N. C. Walton. In 1847 eighty schooners
had been, or were being built in Chicago, one brig and one propeller—the A.
Rosseter—a total tonnage of 4,833. Nineteen schooners, one propeller and one
brig owned by Chicago people. The leading ship-builders at this time were
Jordan, Miller & Conners. The latter afterward formed a partnership with
Riordan & Dunn, on the South side, near the VanBuren street bridge.
By the late 1840s,
82 ships had been built in the city, the overwhelming majority of them
schooners. Shipbuilding was of great importance in Chicago during the period
1850 to 1875, when Chicago was the busiest port city in the United States.
Wooden ships, both steam and sail, made up the bulk of the lake commercial
fleet. Shipbuilders were attracted to Chicago because of its busy port and the
fact that it was the lumber center of America. Scores of shipyards were located
both along the North Branch and the South Branch of the Chicago River.
The largest and most
important shipbuilder was Miller Brothers & Co., located on the Chicago
River just above the Chicago Avenue Bridge. The firm built steamships, tugs,
canal boats, and schooners. When the shipping industry was booming the Miller
Brothers dry docks, the largest on Lake Michigan, were constantly occupied with
ships being rebuilt while carpenters were busy with one or more new ships. The
busiest time of year for new ship construction was in the late winter and early
spring. Sailors idled by the close of shipping joined with the professional
ships' carpenters and caulkers to finish new vessels before the navigation
season began again in April.
William Wallace
Bates, the most influential shipbuilder working on the Great Lakes during the
age of sail, operated a shipyard in Chicago in the 1860s and 1870s. Bates
turned out a series of clipper schooners renowned for their carrying capacity
and speed. Even more important than new shipbuilding was the city's role as a
place to repair or rebuild existing ships. With as many as five hundred vessels
annually wintering in the Chicago River, the shipyards of the city were kept
busy maintaining the fleet. The ship chandlers of the city were also extremely
important, as they supplied sails and cordage to the bulk of the Lake Michigan
marine.
The decline of
wooden shipbuilding brought the decline of Chicago as a construction site. The
Chicago River was too small to serve as a building site for the four- and
five-hundred-foot-long steel ships demanded by the grain and iron ore trade in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chicago River shipyards
remained active by focusing on small boat or yacht construction. During World
War II the Henry Grebe shipyard, on the North Branch of the river, produced the
last wooden ships built in Chicago-minesweepers for the U.S. Navy. By that time
the servicing and construction of large vessels shifted with the bulk of the
city's commercial traffic to the Calumet Region.
The Chicago
Shipbuilding Company was the most important of the steel shipbuilding firms in
Chicago. Founded in 1890 as a subsidiary of the Globe Iron Works of Cleveland,
the company launched in its inaugural year the Marina, the first steel-hulled
ship built on Lake Michigan. By 1899 the company was widely regarded as the
most progressive and prolific shipbuilder on the Great Lakes. In that year, the
company merged with the other large steel shipbuilders on the lakes to form the
American Shipbuilding Company. Under the control of the new company the Chicago
yards continued to produce new ships, although repair and conversion became an
increasingly important part of their business.
Chicago shipyards
produced vessels for federal service in the Civil War, World War I, and World
War II. With the advent of vessels over a thousand feet long, fewer and fewer
ships were capable of meeting the needs of lake commerce. The American
Shipbuilding Company limited its Chicago yard to smaller jobs such as scows and
barges-taking advantage of Chicago's location at the meeting place of the
Mississippi and Great Lakes waterways.
 |
| U.S. Navy minesweeper under construction at Henry C. Grebe & Co. shipyard on the west bank of the North Branch of the Chicago River, June 1952. |
The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway
in 1959 promised a resurgence of the shipping industry in Chicago. Any
resurgence was forestalled, however, by the limited size of the seaway's locks
and by federal shipping policy. By the late twentieth century, shipbuilding had
ceased to be an important activity not only in Chicago but on Lake Michigan.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
