Ecorse + River Rouge, MI: Great Lakes Engineering Works (Shipbuilding)

(Satellite, one of the slips is now used as a marina)

They had a secondary yard in St. Clair, MI. [LoC] And then they moved the secondary yard to Ashtabula, OH in 1910.

Barry Sell posted
Ecorse, Michigan, circa 1906. "Great Lakes Engineering Works." Another look at this ship-building concern on the Detroit River near Lake Erie.
[LC-D4-47042 [P&P]]

Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted

The Great Lakes Engineering Works shipyard in Ecorse, Mich., circa 1906, with the freighter James Laughlin under construction on the left (Image Source: Library of Congress – Detroit Publishing Co.  Collection – enhanced by Shorpy.com).

The notes for the image do not include the name of the photographer. The photograph was created from a dry plate negative. In the background on the far left is an unidentified steamer while an unidentified bulk freighter is on the right.

Additional Information for Image

The photograph was probably taken in early winter 1906 since the James Laughlin would be launched on April 6, 1906. The vessel to the right is almost certainly the bulk freighter Michigan, which was being constructed for the Grand Island Steamship Co. and would be launched on May 26, 1906. The vessel to the far left is the Charles B. Hill of 1878 being rebuilt.

Information Source: 

William Lafferty

[The description continues with a history of each of the freighters.]

 

Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted

The freighter Shenango on the ways at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in Ecorse, Mich. prepared for launch, circa 1909 (Image Source: Library of Congress – Detroit Publishing Co. Collection – enhanced by Shorpy.com). 

The notes for the image do not include the name of the photographer. The photograph was created from a dry plate negative.

[The description continues with the history of the freighter.]

DownRiverThings
"Steamer Detroit: Michigan Central Transfer" from the River Rouge yard. Date unknown. (Courtesy shorpy.com)
"The Great Lakes Engineering Works (GLEW) was formed in the Detroit Metro area in 1902.  Their Downriver shipyard, encompassing the Ecorse / River Rouge border, was open for vessel construction by 1905.  Within only a few years of the opening, the company was already building fifty percent of the gross tonnage of all ships sailing the Great Lakes....The SS Wyandotte, 364 feet in length, was launched from the Ecorse site in 1908 and was the first major vessel of note from this facility: a self-unloader which would make it the prototype for more vessels to come from GLEW."
In 1925 it launched the 604' SS William C. Atwater, which was the first ship with full-size hatches that have single-piece steel hatch covers. On Jun 7, 1958, Hull #301, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was launched. She broke records at 729' long and a capacity of 26,800 long tons. She was the first of a series of "maximum seaway-size" freighters on the Great Lakes. On April 30,1961, GLEW was dissolved and became a division of Great Lakes Steel Corporation.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald still in its slip after it was launched

 

Charles Abar posted
great lakes main plant ship yard launching the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Laurence Cox: The Fitz was carrying a load of ore destined to Zug when she sank.

In addition to the Wyandotte being the first self-unloader ever built, GLEW built the first privately owned floating steel dry dock in 1904. In 1938, GLEW delivered two 611', 15,000 ton ships for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company while two more were built by the American Ship Building Co. in Lorain. OH. The GLEW ships of "RALPH H. WATSON (Hull #285) and JOHN HULST (Hull #286)" had several innovations. "They were the first powered by a cross-compound steam turbine driving a propeller through a reduction gearbox. They were the first freighters built with passageways, or tunnels, under the spar deck, which allowed safe access fore and aft in foul weather conditions. These boats were equipped with single piece hatch covers and traveling hatch cranes. The hulls were mostly of welded construction with some riveting as required....The last ship that the Great Lakes Engineering Company built was the ARTHUR B. HOMER (Hull #303). Her contract was secured late in 1958 and the HOMER’s keel was laid on March 18, 1959 at the River Rouge yard. After thirteen months, the HOMER entered service in the spring of 1960 for the Bethlehem Transportation fleet as the largest vessel, at that time, to enter service in a US Great Lakes fleet. With 730 feet in length and a 75-foot beam, the HOMER was anointed as the flagship of Bethlehem’s fleet. The HOMER was built to the similar design specifications as the EDMUND FITZGERALD but with slight variations; such as the HOMER was one foot longer. In fact, they were so similar that when the US Coast Guard and the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) were investigating the sinking of the “FITZ”, they used the HOMER to compare design properties under severe storm conditions." [MarineHistoricalSocietyOfDetroit, this is an extensive history with lots of photos.]

MeanderingMichiganHistory
"The Great Lakes Engineering works ship yard built most of the large freighters in the Great Lakes fleet." In 1961, Great Lakes Steel Corp. was evidently interested in the land, not the shipbuilding.
"A Detroit Free Press article in June 1903 described the new shipbuilding plant, scheduled to be completed for the most part before August 1. Located in Ecorse-River Rouge, the plant covered an 85-acre tract with 1,400 feet frontage on the Detroit River, and was built around the nucleus of the old Hall BrickYard. The Michigan Central and Detroit Southern railroads had trackage into the yard. There were four shipbuilding berths, 600 feet long, so that four of the largest vessels ever planned for the Great Lakes could be built at the same time. Two slips for the side launching of ships were located between the berths. One of the slips was 600 feet long by 125 feet wide and 14 feet deep and the other measured 600 feet long by 150 feet wide and 30 feet deep. An electric traveling crane ran beside each building berth to carry the components of the ship from the shops to the ship. There were also two ten-ton steam locomotive cranes that  ran on tracks to all parts of the yard to lift, haul and carry supplies and material. Eventually the Engineering Works added a floating dry dock, the largest on the Great Lakes, and a subsidiary plant in Ashtabula, Ohio....By successfully establishing his company, Pessano bested the conglomerate of dry dock and shipbuilding companies that organized in May 1899 under the name of the American ShipBuilding Company.  Because he built and sold his ships competitively Pessano made some avid enemies in the American Ship Building Company; some of the men would have gladly smelted him for his audacity in successfully pitting his company, capitalized at $1,500,000 against American Ship Building’s $30,000,000."

GLEW built marine engines in Detroit. The 1903 plant in Ecorse was called the River Rouge plant because of its proximity to that river. They opened another shipyard in 1903 in St. Clair, MI. That is where they built all eleven of the sections for the Michigan Central Railroad's tunnel between Detroit and Windsor. Then investors in Ashtabula, OH, proposed that they build a shipyard in that town. So they closed the St. Clair yard in 1910 and opened the Ashtabula shipyard in 1911. [DetroitHistorical]

 

HistoryCollection, Great Lakes Maritime Institute
"The Edmund Fitzgerald was built at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge and launched in 1958."

Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted
The stern quarter of the newly-launched freighter William G. Mather at Ecorse, Mich., circa 1905 (Image Source: Library of Congress – Detroit Publishing Co. Collection - enhanced by Shorpy.com). The notes accompanying the image do not include the name of the photographer.
[The description continues with a history of the freighter. Of note: "The ship was the first Great Lakes freighter with a 60-foot-wide beam. "]

Joseph Provost posted three photos with the comment: "Construction and Launching of the Michigan Central Railroad ferry Detroit at the Great Lakes Engineering Works circa 1904, later struggling in the Detroit River ice."

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LoC, 1

LoC, 2