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SHIPS THAT NEVER DIE #218 By Paul LaMarre Entering service in 1907, the steel steamer D. 0. MILLS was the last of four ships commissioned for the Mesaba Steamship Company which had been formed in 1905 by Harry Coulby. In 1913 the Mesaba fleet and seven others were merged to form the Interlake Steamship Company. The MILLS nearly met her end this same year in the Great Storm when she was driven aground on a reef off Harbor Beech, Michigan where she settled to the bottom. The irony of the situation was that a distress signal was never sent by the MILLS, that the lifesaving crew who fought the fierce seas to reach the stranded vessel returned to Harbor Beach without seeing even one crew- member after circling the vessel several times, and that when the seas subsided the ship was pumped out, worked free and sailed to the shipyard for repairs (uninsured) of $45,000 covered by her owners' sinking fund. The MILLS remained an Interlake boat until the year 1960 when she was sold to Tomlinson Fleet Corporation, converted to a self-unloader at Fraser Nelson shipyard, Superior, Wisconsin, and renamed G. A. TOMLINSON after her owner, one of the most famous vessel men in Lake history. In 1971 the TOMLINSON was sold to the Columbia Transportation Division, Oglebay Norton Company, along with the steamers SYLVANIA and JAMES DAVIDSON, ending the "life" of the once gigantic Tomlinson fleet (these boats had been under charter to Columbia since 1969). The TOMLINSON served her last owners well until 1979 when on December 13th she entered Ashtabula Harbor, blowing three long and two short. There she shut down steam for the last time. At the time of this writing she is nearly half scrapped at the Triad Salvage Company yard. D. O. MILLS Photo Editor's Collection