Loading Meade

Posted on by

Title: Loading Meade

Date: February 1913

Photographer: Bain News Service

Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2005012648/

Notes: Photo shows U.S. Army transport ship Meade with American Marines mobilizing at League Island, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, PA, in Feb. 1913, before going to Guantanamo, Cuba, in response to the Mexican Revolution.

 

White Star SS Olympic guided in by tugboats Geo K Kirkham and Dowmer

Posted on by

Title: White Star SS Olympic guided in by tugboats Geo K Kirkham and Dowmer

Date: June 21st, 1911

Photographer: Detroit Publishing Co.

Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994003065/PP/

Notes from Wikipedia

RMS Olympic was a British transatlantic ocean liner, the lead ship of the White Star Line’s trio of Olympic-class liners. Unlike her younger sister ships, Olympic had a long career, spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935. This included service as a troopship during the First World War, which gained her the nickname “Old Reliable”. Olympic returned to civilian service after the war and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable.

Olympic was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1911–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger Titanic (which had the same dimensions but higher gross tonnage owing to revised interior configurations), before she was then surpassed by SS Imperator. Olympic also retained the title of the largest British-built liner until RMS Queen Mary was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of her slightly larger sister ships.

By contrast with Olympic, the other two ships in the class, Titanic and Britannic, did not have long service lives. On the night of 14/15 April 1912, Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and later sank on her maiden voyage, claiming more than 1,500 lives; Britannic struck a mine and sank in the Kea Channel (Greece) in the Mediterranean on 21 November 1916, killing 30 people.

City of Detroit III

Posted on by

Title: City of Detroit III

Date: 1912

Photographer:  Detroit Publishing Co

Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994012539/PP/

Notes:

From Wikipedia

The City of Detroit III was built by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company in Wyandotte and Detroit, Michigan and was designed by Frank E. Kirby. The interior decorations were designed by painter and architect Louis O. Keil, who collaborated with Kirby on many projects. It was owned by the Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company (D&C) and was launched on October 7, 1911. When it was launched the City of Detroit III was the largest sidewheeler in the world. The next year the slightly larger 500-foot (150 m) length over all Seeandbee, another Kirby designed ship, was launched for the Cleveland Buffalo Transit Company (C&B). The City of Detroit III traveled regularly between Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio and Buffalo, New York.

The “Gothic Room”[edit]
The City of Detroit III cost $1,500,000 to build ($38.6 million in 2017 dollars) and was ornately furnished. Forty percent of the steamer’s width was situated over the wheels, allowing room for many amenities like salons, a palm court and a winery to be built into the vessel. One of the rooms was an opulent smoking room called the “Gothic Room”, named for its Gothic design. It was built from English oak and included a stained glass window.

End of service[edit]
The City of Detroit III was taken out service in 1950 when the D&C discontinued service. It was sold for scrap in 1956 and was dismantled. The City of Detroit III’s “Gothic Room” was disassembled and re-erected in a barn near Cleveland, Ohio for ten years before it was once again taken down and then partially reassembled and refinished at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle in Detroit.