Life and Commerce on the Waterfront

Self-isolation continues in this Covid-19 era.  Reporting about our food and the plantings in our yard does have its limitations.  Consequently, I’m once again resorting to my postcard collection, just for a change of topical scenery…

In this post, I’m offering a glimpse of life along America’s waterfronts from the early to mid-twentieth century.

This is one of the 'newest' postcards in my collection.  It was mailed from San Francisco to ‘Alice’ in Kansas City Missouri on September 11, 1947.  The message doesn’t include the sender’s name.  It simply stated “Saw This AM 9-11-47”.  Must have been a male that sent this postcard...

 

The picture shows Fisherman’s Wharf back in those days when it wasn’t just a tourist attraction, but rather primarily a working port for fishing vessels.  The fishing industry at this locale dates back to the mid-1800s.  My first in person view of Fisherman’s Wharf was in 1968 and there were still a lot of working boats around even if much of it had devolved into a tourist trap.  Laurie and I visited it years later…and there still was and is a fishing fleet based at the wharves.

On to mid-America!  This postcard from 1908 depicts the commerce along St. Louis Missouri’s levee on the Mississippi River.  It was sent to Miss Lillian Miller in New York State…can’t read the town’s name.  Weirdly, there isn’t any message on the card.

From my research, I’ve learned that many ships had “eagle” as part of their names.  Grey Eagle was used multiple times, probably because these sternwheelers had a short life-span either due to the many hazards along the river or via boiler explosions. 

I love the detail in this picture… people, horses, cargo, etc.  It is a snapshot of the time and place.  The bridge shown in the background is still in service, with light rail, pedestrian and vehicular traffic.  The Eads Bridge was built in 1874 and, at 146 years old, it is the oldest bridge spanning the Mississippi River.

Our next stopover is along the waterfront in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  This postcard was never sent and I rarely purchase cards that haven’t been mailed or that lack a stamp.  While I can’t really date this card, once again I loved the detail.  Look at that crowd of people!

 

As for that excursion liner at the dock, it is the SS Christopher Columbus and there is plenty of information about her.  The Columbus was the star of the Goodrich Transportation Company.  She was built in 1893 and she was scrapped in 1936.  The Christopher Columbus is the only passenger vessel ever built using a ‘whaleback’ design.  She was designed by a Scotsman, Alexander McDougall and she was built in Superior Wisconsin.

At 363 feet long, the Columbus was reportedly the largest vessel on the Great Lakes when she was launched.  It is said that she carried more passengers during her 4 decades of plying the Great Lakes than any other vessel.  I can date the postcard based on the people’s clothing as well as the fact that the Goodrich Transit Company owned her from 1909 until she was taken out of service in 1933.  The card has to be from 1909 or 1910. 

It’s hard to conceive of it in this day and age, but back in the early days steamboats carried passengers and cargo up just about any navigable river, be it large or small, short or long.  In this case, as this 1906 postcard shows, the river steamer “Mary Graham” is approaching a landing along Michigan’s St. Joseph River.  Look at all the folks awaiting her arrival!  This postcard was mailed from St. Joseph Michigan to someone in Chicago Illinois.

   

The St. Joseph River is 206 miles long, flowing generally westerly through southern Michigan and northern Indiana and then back into southwestern Michigan where it flows into Lake Michigan at the city of St. Joseph.  The river had always been an important trade route for Native Americans and in the 1800s it was a conduit for the delivery of various products to the busy port on Lake Michigan. 

 

I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that, beginning in 1874, Henry Graham and J. Stanley Morton began operating a steam ship line based in St. Joseph...  The company overtook the Goodrich Transit Company and became the major carrier out of this Great Lakes port as well as a major company operating on the Chicago lakefront.  Was “Mary Graham” a daughter or first wife?

Just look at the crowds along the riverfront in Detroit Michigan.  The steamer SS Tashmoo is packed with pleasure seekers too!  This card was sent in 1909 to Mrs. Croft in Chicago by E.S. Croft from Detroit.  The card is addressed ‘Dear Aunty’ and the author tells Mrs. Croft to “just imagine yourself on this boat and having a fine trip”.  Note the Goodrich Boats sign as well as the Adams Express Company sign just above it.  Adams Express lives on today as Adams Diversified Equity Fund, Inc.  They have paid a dividend every year since 1935.  

The Tashmoo was a 320 foot long sidewheel steamboat that plied the waters of Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron.  It was launched in December of 1899, having been built for Detroit’s White Star Steamship Company.  She was nicknamed the “White Flyer” and was famous for being one of the fastest ships operating on the Great Lakes at that time.  The SS Tashmoo’s regular route was from Detroit’s riverfront up to Port Huron Michigan and back.  She made several stops along the way, including at its namesake, Tashmoo Park.  FYI, Tashmoo comes from Native American Indian language and it is interpreted to mean “meeting place”.

Autos were rare and good roads more rare, so steamboat rides were a popular way to escape the crowded big cities.  Tashmoo Park was a stop for several steamers during the summer.  At the south end of Lake St. Clair, it offered visitors a break from city heat.  It had picnic tables, a baseball diamond, swings and rides, plus a casino and a dancing pavilion.  In the summers during the 1890s and into the early 1900s, Tashmoo Park would receive as many as 250,000 visitors.  Today, nothing is left except the concrete floor of the pavilion, which is now used to store customer’s boats over the winter months.   

Here is yet another waterfront scene from Detroit.  I love that red car!  This postcard is a little newer than the previous one.  It was sent by Gertrude at 2543 Woodward Avenue in Detroit to Rosa in Mendota Illinois in October of 1913.  Apparently Gertrude was helping a very sick friend who was in the hospital, so it’s doubtful that she was able to take a pleasure cruise to the Belle Isle Amusement Park.  Note the sign… Moonlight cruises were only 35 cents per person!

Moving on to Cleveland Ohio… As the card states, this is the ‘new pier’ of C and B and D and C Lines at the foot of East 9^th Street.  The card was mailed to Erma Jean Pettegrew in Lee Summit Missouri from her “Mamma” in October of 1927.  Mamma, (and her husband or someone), she referred to ‘we’, were moving on to Buffalo and Niagara Falls on ‘Monday’.

On the back the card reads “The New Pier is the largest and most perfectly equipped passenger and freight terminal on the Great Lakes.  Length 700 feet; width 300 feet; area 5.5 acres.”  The Cleveland and Buffalo Transit Company had been established in 1885 with passenger and freight service between the two namesake cities.  Passenger service became increasingly more popular and in 1913 the SS Seeandbee began making regular runs between Cleveland and Buffalo.  Based on the configuration of the ship in the picture plus the 4 smoke stacks, it’s most likely the ship in the picture.

1913 was the year that the Cleveland and Buffalo Transit Company and the Detroit and Cleveland Line jointly obtained a 50 year lease from Cleveland to build the new pier at the end of East 9^th Street.  It was dedicated in 1915.  Today, East 9^th Street still ends at a pier, albeit a much shorter one that now features a small park.

As for the SS Seeandbee, at 500 feet long, at the time it was the biggest and most expensive inland steamship.  Featuring an elegant ballroom, this all-steel ship could carry 1,500 passengers on its 4 decks.  She operated on a regular schedule until 1941 and in 1942, she was acquired by the US Navy.  Basically, her superstructure was stripped off and a 550 foot long carrier flight deck was installed on top of her long hull.  She was renamed the USS Wolverine.  During WWII she and her sister ship, the USS Sable, formerly the steamer SS Greater Buffalo, were used to train over 17,000 naval aviation personnel.

This postcard at least gives us a glimpse of Buffalo New York’s waterfront back in the early 1900s.  The card was mailed to Mrs. Anna Baker at 409 Orange Street in my home town, Jackson Michigan.  It was sent from Buffalo on August 20, 1910 by Anna’s niece Edith.  Edith was taking the SS Eastern States from Buffalo to Detroit, stopping there to visit her grandparents for a night and then going on to Jackson to see Anna.

 

The SS Eastern States was one of the Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company’s ‘big six’ of their overnight passenger steamers.  She and her sister ship, the SS Western States, had originally been built in 1901 for the Detroit and Buffalo Steamboat Company.  This ship was out of service by 1950 or so but she wasn’t scrapped until 1956.

I really love this old postcard from September of 1908.  The simple waterfront and wharf with that old steamship, the horses and wagons…not exactly what one would think about today as existing along any area of New Jersey’s water front.  Carrie and her mother were spending the day here at Highland New Jersey.  She hoped that her friend in Chicago…I couldn’t read the name…would write soon.

Highlands was incorporated in March 1900.  The eastern part of town is on a high bluff that overlooks Sandy Hook and the Atlantic Ocean…hence “highlands”, the town’s name.  By the 1880s numerous hotels, beach pavilions and private clubs flourished in the town.  It was a glorious era with trains and steamships bringing vacationers to enjoy the Jersey shore.  Given Highlands’ proximity to New York City, many theater producers and actors built summer homes here.  Almost every summer in the 1870s and 1890s, Harper’s Magazine sent a journalist to the town to write about the town and its famous folks.  The town remained a popular tourist destination into the 1920s and early 1930s.  However in 1932 as the Depression stretched on, steamboat operations came to an end.

As for the SS Seabird, seen in the postcard at the wharf in Highlands, I couldn’t find any information about her…

This postcard was postmarked on July 1, 1909.  It was sent by “Auntie” from Winthrop Station in Boston Massachusetts to Mr. J.C. Yuill on 3^rd Avenue in Brooklyn New York.  She was looking forward to his visit over the 4^th of July and she’d meet him at the Winthrop Beach Station.  The station was on the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad, a narrow gauge passenger carrying short line railroad that ran between East Boston and Lynn Massachusetts from 1875 until 1940.

As the front of the postcard states, the picture is of Rows wharf and the water front in Boston.  What a busy place!  There are at least 6 steamboats, mostly side-wheelers, along this portion of the waterfront.  The inner harbor has historically been the main port of Boston and it’s still the site of most of its port facilities.  Of course much of the waterfront has now been redeveloped for residential and recreational use.  

Boston was the 5^th largest city in the USA back in 1900 and 1910.  Today, it is the 22^nd largest although today we really look at total metropolitan areas, in which case it is the 10^th largest city.  In any case, it is still a major port but nothing like what it must have been in the early days and on into the early  1900s.  Today, ranking the port by total tonnage, it is 22^nd, behind cities like Charleston SC and Savannah GA.

Just click on any of the postcards to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a view of life in the early 1900s!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave