Thousands of ships of many shapes and sizes were built and launched in Wisconsin over the past two centuries.
Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Marinette and Sturgeon Bay are often port communities that first come to mind for the most active shipyards, both past and present. However, we would be remiss to leave Superior off this list of important shipbuilding hubs.
Since the late 1800s, more than 200 vessels were launched at the twin ports of Superior and Duluth, Minnesota. One of the most famous and most unusual vessel types developed in Superior was the whaleback.
Named after the cylindrical steel hull that resembled the body of a whale, whalebacks were invented and designed by Capt. Alexander McDougall (1845-1923), a Scottish immigrant and industrialist.
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In 1889, McDougall formed the American Steel Barge Company, which eventually built 44 whalebacks in Duluth and the neighboring city of Superior.
The most successful of these whalebacks was SS Christopher Columbus. It was commissioned by the Columbian Whaleback Steamship Company of New York to provide transportation to the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. The vessel was 362 feet long, 42 feet wide and took only three months for the whaleback to be completed. Launched on Dec. 3, 1892, the vessel carried nearly 7,000 passengers on its maiden voyage from Superior to Chicago in the spring of 1893.
Starboard side of the interior of the whaleback passenger steamer Christopher Columbus looking aft of the main saloon in 1893.
The World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the World’s Fair, was one of the greatest public spectacles the United States had ever hosted to that point. It was at that World’s Fair that the modern electric age was born, thanks to Nikola Tesla’s alternating current invention that powered the entire exposition. It was also where the first electric railcars rolled out, the introduction of the Ferris Wheel, the first mechanical dishwasher, and where the now ubiquitous zipper was introduced for the first time.
1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Birdseye View Map with Whaleback Christopher Columbus.
SS Christopher Columbus enjoyed a very successful year of service to and from the World’s Fair, with an estimated 2 million passengers transported aboard the whaleback. Eventually, it was acquired by the Goodrich Transit Company, where they added a third deck to the vessel and painted the hull black at Manitowoc.
For the first three decades of the 20th century, the whaleback was operated for passenger excursions along the Wisconsin and Illinois shoreline. Twenty-six of those years, it was skippered by Capt. Charles E. Moody, before he retired in January 1930.
1893 view of two women passengers aboard the whaleback steamer Christopher Columbus on the upper deck, just below the pilot house.
It was during the early 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, when the cost to maintain and operate passenger steamships hit a breaking point. This led the Goodrich Transportation Company, with headquarters in Manitowoc, to make the difficult decision to sell or scrap the famous whaleback.
Despite efforts to convert Christopher Columbus into a floating restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, it ended its life in Manitowoc when it was scrapped in the spring of 1936.
A starboard bow view of the passenger whaleback SS Christopher Columbus leaving Manitowoc circa 1898 when Goodrich Transportation Company acquired the vessel.
In the years that followed, pieces of the famous vessel ended up in private hands and remain so to this day.
Visitors to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum can see some of the artifacts that were salvaged from Christopher Columbus in the lower gallery, along with a scale model of the excursion steamer.
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Artifacts from the whaleback Christopher Columbus on exhibit at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.
As for Capt. McDougall’s legacy as the inventor of the whaleback, visitors to Superior can tour the last remaining whaleback, SS Meteor, launched three years after SS Christopher Columbus.
To see two other “whales” in the water, you will need scuba gear to dive to the bottom of eastern Lake Superior to see the whaleback shipwrecks of Thomas Wilson (1892) and Sagamore (1892).
Kevin Cullen
Kevin Cullen is executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc.
This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Great Lakes whaleback ships were developed in Superior, Wisconsin