Bibliograph

McDougall's Great Lakes whalebacks, Neel R. Zoss

Type

Label

McDougall's Great Lakes whalebacks, Neel R. Zoss

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

McDougall's Great Lakes whalebacks

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Neel R. Zoss

Series statement

Images of America

Summary

During the last years of the 19th century, the Duluth Harbor, situated between the sister cities of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, was the birthplace of a bold and innovative and decidedly odd-looking class of Great Lakes barges and steamships known as whalebacks. Capt. Alexander McDougall and his American Steel Barge Company built the curved-decked, snout-nosed whalebacks on the shores of the harbor, first at Duluth's Rice's Point and later in Howard's Pocket at Superior. The vessels were a radical departure, in design, form, and construction, from the standard shipbuilding concepts of the era but proved themselves more than capable as a number of the boats sailed the Great Lakes and the seaboards of America until the 1960s. All the whalebacks are gone now--either scrapped or sunk--with one exception. After sailing the lakes for more than 70 years, thelast whaleback, the SS Meteor, returned home to Superior in 1972 and is now continuing its service as a magnificent maritime museum on Barker's Island

Target audience

adult

Classification

Contributor