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TELESCOPE Page 4 'For many years, the MADISON remained the regular boat on Grand Trunk's cross- lake service from Muskegon to Milwaukee. gan. Pere Marquette (now Chessie System) also covered Kewaunee and Manitowoc with Milwaukee as well and dispatched vessels out of Ludington, Michigan. The third was the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Carferry Company, operating from Milwaukee to Muskegon and Grand Haven, Michigan. All three of these lines became quite com- petitive in the carferry business in the early years of this century, using boats from various shipyards, but all based on the Logan design. It was not until the early 1920's that the most famous of all Lake Michigan carferry designs was created. The design coming from the drawing boards of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company featured the tradi- tional boxlike design of the main hull but added attractive yet simple cabins, along with twin smokestacks and tall, raked masts. A total of six of these vessels were built at Manitowoc and were later updated in some respects. Even though later models were built, these boats remain alone as the most attractive of all carferries. As the railroad traffic crosslake hit boom times in the early 1920's the largest of the carferry operators, Pere Marquette turned to Manitowoc for two new boats to update it's aging fleet of carferries. Although it was the shipyard's first venture into this type of ship, they had some experience along the lines since they had built some of Pere Mar- quette's river ferries for the Detroit River trade. Working within the confines of specifica- tions required by the railroad as far as size and power was concerned and in keeping with the limitations of design, Manitowoc engineers turned out a majestically simple design. The boats were named Pere Mar- quette 21 and 22 and were launched in 1924. The first two vessels were basically freight carrying boats, with only limited passenger accomodations. They were built along a keel length of 348 feet, were wide for their length at 56 feet and could carry about 26 to 28 rail cars. They were bigger and faster than any carferry that preceded them, being power- Author's collection