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ler's own future Bessemer fleet came to grief ultimately by foundering, stranding or sinking in collision. Long before this tragic record could become known, though, the whaleback passed from favor, partly because its small hatches interfered with new loading machinery on the docks. In the early nineties the vessel- men were still awed by whalebacks, which they expected were "going to revolutionize lake traffic and no mistake." McDougall launched his first steel whaleback barge in 1888 at Duluth. At that time the steel shipbuilding firms at Wyandotte, Cleveland and Buffalo had only been building large metal hulls for ten years or less. The yards at Toledo, South Chicago and West Bay City were yet to launch their own first steel hulls. American Steel Barge Company not only built whalebacks; it owned and operated all but a few of them, too. McDougall's permanent shipyard was across the bay from Duluth in Superior, Wisconsin, where ore boats are still lengthened or repaired by TELESCOPE Page 37 Fraser Shipyards, Inc. The future of whalebacks seemed most promising in 1892 when Superior launched seven whaleback steamers and three barges, along with a tug. This was as many big steel hulls as were built by the two companies in Cleveland that season. Only a year before, Cleveland had boasted of being first in the nation in build- ing steel tonnage, far ahead of the East Coast yards. In addition to the northern rival, 1892 brought Cleve- land uncertainty in the foundering of two of her newest products, the ore carriers Western Reserve and W. H. Gilcher, from presumed failure of their brittle steel. Cleveland tried its own whaleback imitations as Closely as fear of patent litiga- tion would allow. "Straightbacks" like Yuma and some Anchor Line pack- age freighters had stiff-looking hulls with no sheer. The "monitors" Andaste and Choctaw had sloped sides to their hulls in trapezoidal pro- file. But Superior seemed unbeatable since McDougall's shipyard had all at Superior, Wisconsin. Looking like nothing so much as a hoop-skirt factory, Whalebacks under construction HAMM Photo/SMITHSONIAN INST.