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The Chicago Republican makes a strong appeal to the business men of that city in favor of establishing manufacturies and dock yards for the building of the iron vessels, which within a few years must supplant the wooden marine of the Great Lakes. The Republican argues well. The building of the iron ships will before many years be a leading industry in one or more of the lake cities. No city can surpass Cleveland in natural facilities for that important business. We have the coal, the iron and the capital. It remains for Cleveland to improve to the utmost her splendid advantages in this respect. Will she do it?2 The leading firm in Cleveland during the first twenty years of steel shipbuilding was the Globe Iron Works. The original firm was started in the middle 1850's as a machine shop on Elm Street. John B. Cowle, William Bowler, Robert Cartwright, and Robert Sanderson were the owners. Cowle was the guiding light, having served fifteen years with old Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company (see page 30). In 1865, on Center Street, a competitive firm, Robert Wallace and Company, was started with Robert Wallace, Henry D. Coffinberry, Arthur Sawtell, and John F. Pankhurst as partners. The Globe Iron Works was already well established in building marine steam engines, yet on January 25, 1869, Wallace and Company purchased the interests of the Globe firm.3 The firm name of the Globe Iron Works was retained with Cowle, Wallace, Pankhurst, and Coffinberry emerging as the stockholders. In 1876 the Globe Iron Works entered the shipbuilding scene by purchasing one-half interest in the Stephens and Presley properties in the Old River Bed (See page 42). George Presley retained his half-interest, and this firm operated as Presley and Company. Finally, in 1880, enough interest was generated in the building of a steel bulk freighter that a stock company was formed among some of the most prominent men in marine circles on the lakes. Included in this syndicate were Philip Minch, I. W. Nicholas, George W. Jones, John N. Glidden, William Pringle, and the Globe Iron Works. Pankhurst, Coffinberry, Wallace, and Cowle formed the Globe Ship Building Company to build this vessel. They purchased property at the foot of Taylor Street, along the Old River Bed, and brought in John H. Smith, who learned the iron shipbuilding trade in England, to superintend construction. The keel was laid in February, 1881, and in April, 1882, the prototype of all steel bulk freighters, the Onoko, left 92