The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ship of the Month - cont'd. even that is a very poor dock si de view of her w hich mak es her look even more home ly than she rea ll y was. The history of N A TIRONCO can be traced back to 1892, whe n she was built as PIONEER (I). A s t e e l -hulled steamer, she was c o n s t r u c t e d at Wy andotte, M i c h igan, as Hull 107 of the Detro it Dry Dock Company. She was 241 feet in o v e r all length, 2 2 6 . 5 feet betw e e n pe rp en di culars, wh ile her beam was 3 5 . 2 feet and her depth was 1 4 . 2 feet. Her tonnage was c a lculated as 1 1 2 3 . 63 Gross and 77 4 . 82 Net. Her single screw was driven by a triple ex pansion engin e of 1, 155 I n dicated Hor sepower, w hich had cyli nd er s of 22, 33 and 54 inches d i a meter, and a stroke of 42 inches. Ste am was provi d e d by two c oal-fired Scotch boilers whic h m e a s u r e d 12'0" by 11'6". The m a c h i n e r y was all built for the vessel by the Dry Dock Engine Works, the s h i p builder's own e n g i n e e r ing affiliate, and PIONE ER 'S engine bore its buil de r' s num be r 169. PIONEER was enr olled at Ma rquette, Michigan, und er U . S. O f f icial Number 150589. O r i g i n a l l y she was owned by the C l e v e l a n d - C l i f f s Iron Company, Cleveland, of w h i c h Ja sper H. Sheadle was manager, but as this compa ny 's shipping o p er ations expanded, she was t ransferred to the a f f i l i a t e d Grand Island S t e amship Company. PIO NE ER could often be seen towing a barge whi ch was c o n s i d e r a b l y larger than the steamer herself. A brief h i s t o r y of the C l e v e l a n d - C l i f f s o r g a n i z a t i o n mig ht be of inte re st to the readers. The orig in al company, known as the C l e v e l a n d Iron M i n i n g C o m pany, was es t a b l i s h e d in 1849 and was i n c o r p o r a t e d in Apr il of 1850. It p u r sued the mi n i n g of iron ore in the Upp er Pen in su la of Michigan, and in 1869 became i n v olv ed in vessel oper at io ns w hen it ac quired a h a l f - i n t e r e s t in the sailing ship GEORGE SHERMAN. In 1872, M. A. and H. M. Hanna, who wer e s t o c k holders in the mi n i n g company, fo rmed the Cl e v e l a n d T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Comp a n y for the purpose of hau li ng iron ore for the C l e v e l a n d Iron Mining Company. The Cle v e l a n d T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Co mpany was co mmonly k nown on the U . S. side of the Great Lakes as "The Black Line", bec au se its freig ht ve ssels were the first on the lakes to have bla ck hulls. The company, however, su spended operations in 1889, and its ships were all sold. In 1890, the C l eveland Iron Mining Comp a n y me r g e d w ith the Iron Cliffs Company, of Marquette, and the new co r p o r a t i o n was known as the C l evelandCliffs Iron Company. Over the years, this firm had at least si xteen lake shipping a f filiates which either were direc t subsidiaries ownin g vessels, or were firms from which "Cliffs" c h artered ships; the best kno wn of the subs idiaries was the C l e v e l a n d - C l i f f s S t e amship Company. A l t h o u g h the C l e v e land-Cliffs Iron Comp a n y remai ns in ex istence today, the last of its vessel operations were su sp ended in 1981, the year after the co mpany lost its orefloat contract w ith the R e p u b l i c Steel Corporation. Ho w did PIONEER come by her name? She was one of the first steamers built new for the C l e v e l a n d - C l i f f s Iron C o m p a n y after its incor po ra ti on , and she also was one of the first few lake ve ssels to be built wi th a steel hull. Those two things qua l i f i e d her as a "pioneer" on the sh ipping scene, but in addition, she may well have been the first cran es hi p (as we know the term) on the lakes. She car ri ed three small cranes on her deck for the h a n d l i n g of pig iron and steel products, and in this respect she res e m b l e d CA DILLAC (I), a steamer of simila r dime n s i o n s but e n t irely diff er en t appearance, w h i c h was built for the Cliffs fleet that same year (1892) by the Chica go S h i p b u i l d i n g Company. There is, however, anoth er pr obable d e r i v a t i o n for the name PIONEER. In its early years, the Cliffs o r g a n i z a t i o n named some of its ships for the sites of its iron m i n i n g and other operations. The Pione er Furna ce C o m p a n y had built the first blast furna ce s in M i c h i g a n ' s Upper Pen i n s u l a back in 1857, and this firm was a c q uired by the C l e v e l a n d - C l i f f s Iron Com pa ny not long before the c o n s t r u c t i o n of the steamer PIONEER. It seems likely that the ship's name was in tended to honou r thi s. me w Cliffs acq ui si ti on .