What’s its name again?
By James Heinz
The story of the fireboats is made more difficult by the Milwaukee Fire Department’s habit of changing the names of the boat to engine company numbers and then back again, and then reusing the same names and numbers, and using both a name and a number to refer to a boat at different or even the same time. Why would they do such a thing?
Politics.
Beertown Blazes explains: “A name for the new fireboat had sparked controversy [as] various officials touted their favorites. There was already one boat named for a German, one named for an Irishman, and it was time to call a halt before either faction became outnumbered. Foley settled the matter by wiping out all the fireboat names, including his own. The Foley became MFD 17, the Janssen became MFD 23 and the new steel boat was christened MFD 15, and the Cataract was retired.”
MFD 15 was built in 1903 at the Chicago Shipbuilding Company of Chicago. She was designed by naval architect W. J. Wood. Her steel hull was 194 gross tons. She measured 106 feet long, 26 feet wide, and drew 13.7 feet of water, and cost a total of $97,075. A special bow and a four bladed propeller with extra heavy blades were designed for icebreaking. For maneuverability, she had a rudder 8.5 feet long, which was as large as the rudders on lake freighters. She carried three pumps which could pump 3,000 gallons per minute. The 14 year old daughter of the then fire chief christened her using a silver mounted bottle of Pabst beer for the event.
The City of Milwaukee now had three fireboats. And three were not enough. In 1905, the city ordered MFD 29 from the Manitowoc Dry Dock Company. She was 148 gross tons, 96 feet long, 26 feet wide, and drew 11.6 feet of water. She cost $71,500 and would have cost more but the frugal City of Milwaukee, in an early example of recycling, used some of the machinery from the original CATARACT. This is probably why, in an apparent attempt to confuse future historians, the city also recycled the name CATARACT to refer to MFD 29 and the fact that the name CATARACT was a nice neutral name with no ethnic associations that could cause controversy.
The machinery from the original CATARACT could not have been the original machinery, since fireboat service was hard on their steam machinery. Steam pressure had to be kept up at all times.
Given that there are ships and wooden tugboats still afloat on the Great Lakes that are over 100 years old, the CATARACT’s service life of only 13 years seems a little short. American Fireboats explains: “Fireboats paid a premium for being in service as much as possible, unlike tugs that could ‘lay up’ in the winter or be non operational for days at a time. The wooden hulls of fireboats had a life of between eight and ten years before major repairs were needed, their wooden superstructures lasted about four years. Fireboats that operated in rivers fared even less.”
As to what happened to the original CATARACT, there is no definitive record. WMHS records say she was “dismantled” or she may have been scuttled in Lake Michigan, as would happen to two of her successors. She disappears from the record around 1905.
Although the Milwaukee River was crowded with ships, many made of wood, there is only one recorded incident in which a Milwaukee fireboat was called upon to extinguish a ship fire…and the burning ship was not even in Milwaukee. WMHS files show that around noon on March 18, 1906, MFD 15 was telephoned by the Lifesaving Service station at Jones Island and asked to assist in extinguishing the burning wooden steamer ATLANTA, which was on fire north of Port Washington. MFD 15 picked up the Jones Island lifesavers and made it to Port Washington by 3:30 pm, only to find the lake empty. The ATLANTA had burned to the waterline and sank off Cedar Grove before MFD 15 arrived.
The problem with wear and tear on fireboat engines and pumps was also related to the stuff they were consuming and pumping. It could best be described as WINO: Water In Name Only. Beertown Blazes quotes one journalist as saying: “The water is called that only by courtesy. Craft condemned to navigate the Menomonee should be equipped with wheels.” Chief Foley reported that “The water is so filthy that it is dangerous for the boats to work their pumps.” On at least one occasion a fireboat was disabled by the same water the boat was trying to pump. The water was so dirty that MFD 23/JANSSEN was repainted from a black hull and white deckhouse to a muddy shade of olive drab so the dirt would not show.
Although fireboat duty might not seem as dangerous as land engine duty, it does not mean it was not dangerous. The fireboat crew often went ashore to fight fires. WMHS files show at least two Milwaukee fireboat captains were killed in the line of duty: Captain Archie Campbell of MFD 15 in 1894 and Captain John Doyle of MFD 29/Cataract #2 in 1913. Lt. Harris Giddings and firemen Lawrence Hanlon and Peter Lancaster of MFD 29 received the gold Carnegie Medal in 1906 for rescuing a worker trapped in a tunnel beneath the Milwaukee River.
One Beertown Blazes description of a fire that MFD 23 fought in 1913 describes how dangerous fireboat duty could be: “MFD 23 steamed up the canal through a sheet of flame. Crewmen took turns dousing each other with buckets of water as they stood to their hose lines. With clothes afire and the deckhouse smoking, they were five times forced to back the boat away and wet down everything on board, and then steamed in again. Nearby, stored dynamite, a big lumber yard, and an oil storage tank threatened disaster, which was staved off only by the courage of No. 23’s firefighters.”
Fireboats also faced dangers that land firefighters did not have to face. On one occasion, MFD 15 was almost crushed at its Water Street dock by the 452 foot long lake steamer PRICE McKINNEY. Descending the river, fighting an adverse current and an 18 mph west wind, the McKINNEY scraped dock pilings and nearly crushed MFD 15, whose crew deployed fenders in an effort to “soften the blow”.
American Fireboats says that the peak year for all four boats was 1905, when they responded to 500 alarms. All four boats remained in service until 1922. By that time the two oldest ones had deteriorated substantially and the problem they had been built to solve was solving itself. Changes in the economy led to the abandonment or relocation of many of the industries that had lined the Milwaukee River and which were the sources of many fires. The costs for both the boats and the firefighters who staffed them were also rising.
So, as in 1905, the city of Milwaukee decided to consolidate fireboat service. The book “Milwaukee’s Historic Fireboats” by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Foundation and the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association says that the FOLEY/MFD 17 was laid up in 1922 and kept in reserve. MFD 23 was stripped of much of her equipment and her engine, but not her boiler, in 1922. On July 27, 1923, she was towed out into Lake Michigan, set on fire as a public spectacle, and scuttled.
The City of Milwaukee then purchased its sixth fireboat. This time following Chief Foley’s original suggestion, they bought used instead of new. The craft that they purchased was called the TORRENT. She was the largest Milwaukee fireboat measuring 110 feet long, 28 feet wide, and drew 15 feet of water with twin funnels and displaced 296 gross tons. She had two turbine pumps which together could pump 12,000 gallons per minute, powered by a double high pressure engine and two Scotch boilers.
She was built in 1910 at Lorain, Ohio, by the American Ship Building Company for the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad who used her as a tugboat and fireboat at Duluth. She was purchased on October 28, 1922, for $65,000. Her arrival in Milwaukee created a big splash. Literally. Mayor Daniel Hoan told Chief Clancy to show the crowd what the boat could do. What she could do was launch a four inch stream of water over the top of a downtown office building, which poured through open windows on the other side, generating $10,000 in damage claims.
TORRENT and MFD 29 were kept in active service. MFD 17/FOLEY was kept in reserve until, according to “Milwaukee’s Historic Fireboats”, her machinery was taken out and she was scuttled on May 12, 1930, in Lake Michigan. They describe her sinking as being at 11:02 a.m. five miles northeast of the Milwaukee Lightship.
In 1932, MFD 29 was placed on reserve, leaving TORRENT and MFD 15 to protect the city. Demands for their service declined; in 1944 they responded to only three fires. The cost of operating the boats was high, since they consumed 1,600 tons of coal per year. The Great Depression eliminated any source of funding for new boats or for converting them to diesel engines.
So ends Chapter 3 of: THE BOATS THAT KEPT MILWAUKEE SAFE
- Once there were over 250 of them
- The beginning
- What’s its name again?
- Out with the coal, in with the diesel
- Gone but still around
Photo at top of page:
MFD NO. 15 with her crew
Other photos:
Photo Credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
____________________________________
James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
