BySuzette Lopez
On March 7, 1912, the RACINE was still stuck in ice off Racine, Wis. The Northern Michigan Transportation Company passenger steamer and the IOWA of the Goodrich line had been stuck since trying to enter the Racine Harbor the night of the 3rd. The steamers were within half a mile of each other and about a mile and half from shore. Both were coming from Chicago on their regular Milwaukee run when the wind changed and the ice floes started to pile up. They battled the ice until running into 15 feet of blue ice and there they stayed.
There was no fear for their safety and they had plenty of food to wait it out. They did not have smoking or chewing tobacco. The RACINE’s lookout Daniel Hoey volunteered to walk over the ice to the city and pick it up. He did so with the help of a broomstick which did not save him from falling into the water. He did make it to shore, soaked, but dried off in William Hay’s cigar store on Sixth Street and then returned to his ship over the ice.
The tug LANGLOIS was engaged on the 5th to go to the assistance of the RACINE. The tug worked a channel in the ice to the within 150 feet of the steamer’s stern, when one of the chains on her rudder broke. She could not back up and the ice pushed her up on the windrow.
It was estimated that 500 men, boys and some girls, walked across the ice to the steamer RACINE and the tug, which then was lying on its side thanks to ice crowding under its bottom.
Attempts were made on the 6th to release the RACINE and LANGLOIS by using dynamite to blow up the ice and windrows. That was unsuccessful.
Warmer weather and the use of 1,500 pounds of dynamite on the morning of the 8th was successful. The dynamite blast tore a hole through a 25 foot wall of ice and a path to open water. The RACINE and IOWA steamed into Racine to unload their freight and fill their bunkers with coal. The tug LANGLOIS was able to free itself the evening before.
With the mild weather we have recently had, temperatures in the 60s, we forget that sometimes Lake Michigan was still frozen in March. There was a loss to the owners’ pockets with their vessels being stuck for five days, but no loss of life.
The RACINE was built at Toledo, Ohio, in 1901 at the Craig Ship Building Co. for A. Booth & Co. of Duluth as the ARGO. She was renamed RACINE in 1910 when bought by the Northern Michigan Transportation Co. She measured 173.5 feet in length and 31.6 feet in beam. She sailed off the lakes in 1917, sold to the French government who renamed her RENE.
The IOWA was built at Manitowoc, Wis., in 1896 on the hull of the burned wooden steamer MENOMINEE which had been built in 1872 and was owned by Goodrich. She was owned by Goodrich until her loss by being crushed by ice off Chicago on February 4, 1915.
Photo at the top of page:
RACINE stuck in ice off Racine, March 7, 1912.
Other photos:
PHOTO CREDIT: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
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Suzette Lopez is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
