These are notes I am writing to help me learn our industrial history. They are my best understanding, but that does not mean they are a correct understanding.
Monday, November 1, 2021
Detroit, MI: Detroit Shipbuilding/(Detroit Dry Dock + Dry Dock Engine Works)
(Satellite, you can still see where the dry dock was)
Steve Vanden Bosch posted five photos with the comment: "This is a photo of the City of Cleveland which the named changed to City of Cleveland lll in 1912 this photo was taken at Detroit Shipbuilding in 1906 or 1907. This photo is from the Library of Congress Detroit Publishing Collection."
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LC-D4-13652 [P&P] two triples: 18 x 29 x 48/40: 18 x 29 x 48/36; one quadruple: 19 x 29 1/2 x 40 x 58/42; Detroit Shipbuilding Co., July 13 1901 Also TheHenryFord
LC-D417-1175 [P&P] Str. no. 190, main engine in shop, 3 cyln. compound-inclined type
"The first steamboat to hit the Great Lakes was The Ontario in 1817, launching an era of mechanization for the waterways that linked the great industrial cities of the Midwest. In 1860, to seek their share of the success, Campbell, Wolverton and Company opened a boat repair shop at the end of Detroit’s Orleans street, near the Detroit River. To complement their new shop, a 260 foot-long dry dock was built that same year. Over the next few years they would build a second dock and expand their business to not only repair boats, but to also build them. These are the roots of the Dry Dock Engine Works, which was formed in November 1866....Between its founding and 1880, it built 33 [steam] engines....Most of these steam engines also had their boilers designed by the Engine Works. The Dry Dock Engine Works was early to adopt the next evolution of steam power: the triple-expansion engine....In 1905, half of all the ships built for the Great Lakes (by tonnage) were built in Detroit....Because of its limited capacity and in the face of an increasing number of labor disputes, the Engine Works closed in 1925." [substreet] In addition to repair work, they started using the dry dock to build new ships. They completed their first steam ship in 1867. As noted above, they built 33 steam engines by 1880. By 1894 it produced 96 more steam engines. The shipyard closed in 1929. [DetroitHistorical] I wonder when the technology switched from reciprocating steam engines to steam turbines. Specifically, was obsolescence another reason the Engine Works closed in 1925?
Around 1877 the Detroit-based engine and ship building companies reorganized, obtained Kirby's Wyandotte operation, and became the Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1899 it evolved into the Detroit Shipbuilding Co., a subsidiary of the American Shipbuilding Co., which was headquartered in Cleveland. [DetroitHistorical]
A list of ships built by this company including the Wyandott facility
DetroitUrbex Today [2012] only the machine shop remains, which is actually made up of five separate structures built between 1892 and the 1919. But why have many of the vacant industrial buildings that once lined the riverbank have been demolished, while the Detroit Dry Dock has been spared a similar fate on several occasions? Preservationists regard it as one of the earliest and best examples of the open-space industrial construction design that favored self-supporting steel skeleton, a method that would become common in buildings around the world.
clickondetroit [Michigan Department of Natural Resources was supposed to pay money to help preserve one of the buildings. DetroitUrbex says $34m was spent and the work was completed in 2014.]
Detroit Shipbuilding Co. life rafts dept.1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
Str. no. 190, 3 double end boilers, 14' diameter, 21'-10" long, Detroit Shipbuilding Co.1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017) Steamer 190 was the Seeandbee, launched in 1912; later, the USS Wolverine (Source: C. Seavey, 2020).
[Steamer City of Cleveland, broadside]1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
[Steamer City of Cleveland, bow view]1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1907
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
Str. Seeandbee1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1912
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
Str. Seeandbee1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2020)
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1912
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
Str. Seeandbee1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1912
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
Str. Seeandbee1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017)
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1912
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
Str. no. 190, main engine in shop, 3 cyln. compound-inclined type1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the Orleans Street yard of the Detroit Shipbuilding Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. (Source: researcher W. Worden, 2017) Steamer 190 was the Seeandbee, launched in 1912; later, the USS Wolverine (Source: C. Seavey, 2020).
Contributor: Detroit Publishing Co.
Date: 1910
PHOTO, PRINT, DRAWING
City of Detroit III1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in. | Photograph shows the hull of the City of Detroit in the Orleans Street Yard in Detroit where engines, boilers and superstructures were installed. (Source: researcher, 2019)
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