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The Detroit Marine Historian Journal of Marine Historical Society of Detroit Volume 31 No. 7 March 1978 Rev. Peter J. Van der Linden, Editor, 190 Green Dr., Harsens Island, Michi, 8028 Published Monthly Annual Dues $5.00 1924 and 1925: The Watershed Years By Gordon P. Bugbee Part I GREATER DETROIT = ~~ Baitor's Photo Steel passenger sidewheeler (US. 223664) built in 1924 by American SB. Co., Lorain (Hull #785): 518.7 x 58 x 21.3; 7,739 gross tons. Superstructure intentionally destroyed by fire in Lake St. Clair on December 12, 1956 and hull scrapped at Hamilton, Ontario in early 1957. Between the late summer of 1924 and the following spring Detroit became home port to two new steamers which were the largest sidewheelers in the world. The same period witnessed the liquidation of Detroit's largest fleet of excursion steamers. In that short time the grand manner of steamboating was giving way to the dismal spiral of retrenchment, and the eventual demise of nearly all Great Lakes passenger vessels. The new sisters were the 536-foot GREATER DETROIT and GREATER BUFFALO. They served the Detroit-Buffalo route of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company. eir designer was Frank E. Kirby, who had planned all of the company's sidewheelers for nearly half a century. Two other Kirby night boats on Lake Erie had been the world's largest sidewheelers in their time. These were the D&C lines's CITY OF (Continued on page 2)