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Sixty Years Ago Shipbuilding was the order of the day in 1906. American shipyards had contracts for 1906 delivery of 34 bulk freighters, 2 package freight- ers, 2 railroad carferries and one passenger steamer. American Ship Building alone had contracts for 29 large vessels and was using six yards, including Bay City which was hit by a severe fire Dec. 30, 1905. The Bay City yard was ccmpletely rebuilt in 21 days. Among the vessels launched in Jan- vary, 1906, were the JOSEPH SELL- WOOD at Lorain, E.D.CARTER at Wyan- dotte, EUGENE ZIMMERMAN at Toledo and CHARLES S. HEBARD at Cleveland. Two of the four are still with us_in one form or other. E. De. CARTER became WILLIAM T. ROB— ERTS, then DOW CHEMICAL, then NORMAN J. KOPMEIER and is the self-unloader PINEDALE. CHARLES S. HEBARD is spending this winter at Manistee being prepared to be sunk as a_ dock at Charlevoix next spring. Passenger boats were much in the news. Plans were underway for the joiner department of the Detroit Ship Building Co. to add about 70 staterooms to the veteran side- wheeler DARIUS COLE so that she could enter service between Toledo, Detroit and Georgian Bay in the springee.The Detroit, Belle Isle « Windsor Ferry Co., signed a con- tract with the Detroit Ship Build- ing Co. "for a fine new steamer for service on the Belle Isle run. This new boat will be practically a dup- licate in design of the big steamer COLUMBIA of the Bois Blanc route but will not be quite as large..." This became the BRITANNIA (See Vol. 18, No. 9). She seems to have spent most of her time on the Bob-Lo_run__until te. CLAIRE came out and was then rebuilt as _a_cross-river fer- rye In later years she became a_tug and was recently reduced to_a_ barge at Superior. Anticipating Al Kunz by 60 years, The Marine Review of Jan. 11, 1906, published a winter lay-up list which showed a total of 44 vessels wintering in the Detroit-windsor area. Of these 9 were freighters, 4 were schooners, 3 were barges and 28 were passenger boats! One of those that spent the winter of 1905-6 here is also spending the winter of 1965-6 on the Detroit waterfront. What is her name? One hint, she is a passenger vessel, areal fine old girl. "The steamer INDIANAPOLIS, which was sold by the Indiana Transporta- tion Co. to the Alaska Steamship Co. of Seattle, has reached the latter port after a successful trip around the Horn." A certain Society member who lives in Canada has a fine pic- ture of the INDIANAPOLIS leav— ing the Lakes through Welland Canal. If he would care to lend it to the Historian, it would go a_long way toward mak— ing a "Ships That Never Die" on this interesting vessel. "Duluth, Minn. Jan. 15 -- It has been decided to abandon the old wood steamer GEORGE SPENCER, ashore on the north shore of Lake Superior and she will be left to her fate. Other vessels lying on the beaches as the result of fall gales are by the salvors abandoned until spring! This included some newer ships, MATAAFA, LAFAYETTE, MANILA and CRESCENT CITY. The GEORGE SPEN= CER_was a real in Cleveland in 1884. It was reported that in ort of Duluth-Superior 299,000,000 feet of lumber. Wonder how much shipped in 19657 1905 the shipped lumber they Dave Glick