On this day, January 22, 1918, the Goodrich steamer ALABAMA was stuck in the ice off Muskegon.  As you can see from the photos, that winter was rather harsh.   We may have just had a cold spell here on the Great Lakes but we certainly did not have ice like January 1918.

            The Goodrich Transit Company’s steel icebreaking passenger steamer ALABAMA was launched at Manitowoc, Wis., on December 18, 1909.   Built by the Manitowoc Ship Building and Dry Dock Company to run between Chicago, Grand Haven, and Muskegon, she measured 250 feet in length, 45.5 feet in beam and 26.1 feet in depth and cost close to $350,000.  Miss Elizabeth Goodrich, the youngest daughter of President A. W. Goodrich, christened her.

          The ALABAMA sailing for the Goodrich Line

           Dining Room of the ALABAMA

          Purser’s Office of the ALABAMA

          Parlor of the ALABAMA

         The bathroom of the ALABAMA

            The ALABAMA was a palatial and a valued steamer for the Goodrich Line constantly being featured in their yearly schedules.   She sailed in nearly continuous service for them until the early 1930s when the company went into receivership.  Even in early 1933 when all the Goodrich boats were put up for bankruptcy bids, the ALABAMA was considered “the most valuable piece of floating equipment of the Goodrich Company.”

          The ALABAMA sailing for the Kirby Line

            Later the ALABAMA sailed for the Kirby Line and Georgian Bay Line.  She was retired as a warehouse in 1946, sold for scrap in 1960, her cabins were burned off in 1961, redocumented as a barge in 1962, used as a construction barge and had a deck crane installed in 1964, used to ferry scrap metal from River Rouge to Windsor, Ont. in 1988, towed to LaSalle, Ont. in November 2005, and was finally scrapped in 2006.

         The ALABAMA docked and abandoned in 2004

            The ALABAMA was certainly a fine and well-built boat.  She was able to change with the times and reinvent herself to have many careers, lasting on the Lakes for over 97 years.

Suzette Lopez

Photo credit:  Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.