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

11. Ship of the Month - cont'd. quired in 1901 by the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, and cottages and a game preserve were established on the island. The steamer first sailed under her new name in 1916. Cliffs re-registered GRAND ISLAND at Fairport, Ohio, al though her home port later became Wilmington, Delaware. Before her acquisition by Cleveland-Cliffs, the steamer had been given an enclosed upper pilothouse, which made things much more comfortable for the officers on watch. Later, in 1924, Cliffs gave her a major rebuild, after which her tonnage was recorded as 5446 Gross and 4143 Net. In 1938, GRAND ISLAND was reboilered with two new Scotch boilers, which were manufactured by the American Ship Building Company. They measured 12'6" by 12'2 3/8". As time went by, GRAND ISLAND received additional refitting, and she came to show what certainly came to be the distinctive "Cliffs look". She received a new and much larger steel pilothouse, with a closed catwalk around its front and a prominent bulge in the walk where the binnacle was placed outside the centre pilothouse window. A canvas weathercloth usually could be seen draped around the top of the catwalk rail, ready to be raised in the event of heavy weather. A large overhang of the boat deck was constructed over the front of the boilerhouse and down both sides, with a closed steel bulwark around it, thus increasing the amount of bunker coal that could be piled up around the b u n ker hatch. The ship's name was carried in very large black letters across the front of the boilerhouse rail. A new smokestack, shorter and stockier than the original, and with a prominent cowl around its top, was fitted. The foremast was shortened a bit, and the old mainmast was replaced by a new steel pipe mast. In latter years, the Cleveland-Cliffs name was carried on each side of the hull, painted "billboard-style" with large white letters. Although she looked very much like many of her Cliffs fleetmates, she was a bit different from most of them in that she gave the impression of being "lighter" in construction and less substantial or strong. Her hull seemed to lose some of its sh eer as she aged, and she always gave the impression of being twisted a bit to port at the bow, this latter probably a legacy of the 1906 collision with SAXONA. Not surprisingly, GRAND ISLAND was one of the first ships retired in the 1960s when Cleveland-Cliffs began to eliminate the less economical freigh ters from its fleet. GRAND ISLAND, of course, was by then one of the smaller ships in the company's service, but she carried as many crew members as the larger ships did, if not more. Accordingly, she was laid up at Buffalo in 1960, and she never again turned her propellor. In 1962, she was sold to the Acme Scrap Metal Company for dismantling. Acme did not break her up, however, but instead resold her to the Auxiliary Power Corporation, of New York. This firm acquired GRAND ISLAND, along with two of her former fleetmates and another old lake steamer, for the purpose of "trading them in", via the United States Maritime Administration, on newer tonnage for deep-sea service. The GRAND ISLAND was renamed (c) POWERAUX CHRIS, and this name was painted on the bow in very small white letters. It appeared in larger letters on the fantail, along with the regis try port of New York, N. Y. Other than the application of the new name and the blacking out of the 'C 'on her stack, the ship's colours were unchanged. We should note that GRAND ISLAND'S Cliffs fleetmates JOLIET, (a) HERBERT F. BLACK (30), and MARQUETTE, (a) E. L. WALLACE (16), were renamed POWERAUX MARK and POWERAUX ROGER, respectively, while the former Gartland Steamship Company steamer RALPH S. CAULKINS, (a) J. M. JENKS (16), (b) R. R. RICHARD SON (42), became POWERAUX PETER for the same new owners. The four ships were to be used temporarily for grain storage at Buffalo, but we are not certain that this ever occurred, and eventually they were all purchased by Eckhardt & Company, of Hamburg, Germany. The four were given