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

Buffalo Dry Dock Company $260,000 for their tools, machinery, etc., and took over the construction on yard number 92 (Wilkes-barre).12 In 1904, James C. Wallace succeeded to the presidency when Mr. Brown retired to become chairman of the board. In that same year, American Ship Building decided to sell the land occupied by the Cleveland plant of the old Cleveland Ship Building Company.13 They did not sell it, however, until 1905, when the Erie Railroad purchased it for $46,000, for the construction of a coal dock.14 The most revolutionary occurrence in 1904 was the construction of the steamer Augustus B. Wolvin at the Lorain plant. The "Yellow Kid," as she was dubbed, was the largest vessel launched on the Great Lakes to that time (504 feet). She was also the first to have deep side tanks and transverse arches instead of deck beams and hold stanchions.15 This was to accommodate the newly-developed Hulett ore unloaders and make the handling of bulk cargoes easier and quicker. The need for speed in the handling of cargoes can be appreciated better when one considers the keen competition between steel firms and shipping companies in bringing iron ore from the mines to the mills. This very thing supposedly created a crisis for American Ship Building in 1900.16 The Rockefeller interests, largely represented by Colgate Hoyt at American Ship Building, also owned a fleet of bulk freighters on the lakes, the Bessemer Steamship Company. Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller's rival on the lakes, also owned a fleet of vessels, the Pittsburgh Steamship Company. Carnegie attempted to control the freight rates of iron ore on the lakes by delivering an ultimatum to the Rockefeller interests to cut their rates, stipulating about half of the regular rates. This would have adversely affected every ore-carrying vessel on the lakes. At the same time, Carnegie extended invitations to every major shipyard along the lakes to submit bids for the building of several vessels for his fleet. The other shipyards waited for American Ship Building's action. American Ship Building was caught in the middle of a war not of their making. A meeting of stockholders was called and the question was presented to them: build Carnegie's vessels at a great profit, or stand by the side of a major stockholder? The Bessemer fleet was already riding at anchor, idle. A vote was taken; it was negative. Carnegie was defeated. More than new ships, he needed the iron ore. Thus in 1901, the Rockefeller and Carnegie fleets merged into the gigantic Pittsburgh Steamship Company, numbering over 100 vessels. One source says that Rockefeller 102