Long live the queen

AS A BOY growing up in Battle Creek, Mich., I used to travel with my family to Muskegon, Mich., in the summer to enjoy the wonders of Lake Michigan. Many a time, I watched as a fabulous cruise ship arrived and departed from Muskegon Harbor, and I knew that someday I'd take a trip of my own on that beautiful craft.

That was a different time, in a nation that had recovered from a world war and discovered a world of new marvels. We were head over heels for the automobile. We ate up television. We could put a man on the moon. There was talk of an amazing new device called the computer. And we were able to drive our cars onto a Great Lakes cruise ship and cross Lake Michigan "in style" aboard the legendary Milwaukee Clipper.

Now we have space shuttles, and computers the size of a checkbook. But you can't take that cross-lake luxury cruise anymore. And they call that progress.

Actually, the Milwaukee Clipper is still around. Some years ago, I found the "Queen of the Great Lakes" docked at Navy Pier in Chicago. She now rests in Hammond, Ind., and if some people have their way, she could be cut up and sold for scrap by this spring.

A ship of such importance to our region deserves a better fate. This is her story.

The Milwaukee Clipper dates back to 1905, seven years before the launching of the Titanic. The American Ship Building Co. in Cleveland launched a Great Lakes passenger and freight steamship that year and christened her the Juniata. She operated primarily between Buffalo, N.Y., and Duluth, Minn. The Juniata was a beautiful ship with an enormous wooden superstructure and plenty of staterooms for the 1,000-plus passengers she ferried.

In the early part of our century, traveling by steamer was comparable to traveling by air today just not as fast. The Juniata operated successfully for more than 30 years, but in 1939 another passenger vessel with a wooden superstructure, the Morro Castle, caught fire, allegedly at the hands of arsonists, off the Atlantic Coast. Hundreds died, and the Coast Guard reacted to the tragedy by banning other vessels of similar design from operating within United States waters. The Juniata was among them.

In 1941, the Wisconsin and Michigan Steamship Co., which had been ferrying freight and a limited number of passengers to and from the Ports of Milwaukee and Muskegon on the S.S. Nevada, purchased the Juniata and replaced her wooden superstructure with a streamlined, art deco steel structure. She was the first "new" luxury liner on the Great Lakes in 20 years. In May 1941, the rebuilt vessel was christened the Milwaukee Clipper.

Because she was launched from Wisconsin, she wasn't christened with a bottle of bubbly but a bottle of moo a quart of milk. Like the Juniata, the Milwaukee Clipper was designed to ferry more than passengers. In the summer months, she would carry nearly 1,000 passengers and 120 automobiles on each crossing. In the wintertime, she was used to ferry new automobiles from Detroit to Wisconsin. One of the reasons Interstate 96 stretches from the Motor City to Muskegon is the car ferry service created by the Milwaukee Clipper.

The ship also traveled to Chicago, docking at Navy Pier. The Clipper became famous for excursions for war veterans, known as the Purple Heart Cruises.

For 29 years, from 1941 until 1970, the Milwaukee Clipper was the way to cross Lake Michigan in style. Folks from Milwaukee would take their families and cars across for a Michigan vacation (or simply to avoid Chicago traffic jams on eastward excursions). Families from Chicago, with cottages in west Michigan, took the Clipper as a shortcut and a way to enjoy the refreshing lake breeze. Folks from Michigan took the ship over to Milwaukee to watch baseball games.

But since 1970, the year the Clipper stopped sailing, this "bridge from Milwaukee to Michigan" has been closed.

The owners of the Clipper wanted to use a much larger ship, the Aquarama, for crossings (it carried four times as many passengers and autos as the Clipper), but a dredging of the waterway to Milwaukee's Municipal Pier would have been required, and the city and operators of the Clipper Line reached an impasse. The Milwaukee Clipper, though still sound and fit for journeys, needed some routine maintenance. The Coast Guard, with yet more stringent regulations, was no help, either.

For seven years, the famous liner remained moored in Muskegon.

In 1977, Chicago businessman Jim Gillon, along with a group of investors, bought the Clipper and had her towed to a shipyard in Wisconsin where the needed structural repairs were performed. They planned to operate her out of Chicago for Lake Michigan excursions. But Gillon's backers pulled out of the deal. The ship was tied up in court until 1980, when she finally arrived at Navy Pier.

Gillon spent the next few years restoring the ship's art deco interior to perfection, and the ship was opened for tours and parties. Hopes were high that she would once more make cruises on the waters of Lake Michigan, but the money ran out, along with the once-friendly treatment she'd received from the past leaders of the Windy City.

In 1989, this famous vessel, which had carried millions of passengers, including Gene Autry and Ernie Pyle, became a "National Historic Landmark," the highest recognition given by the federal government for historical places. The Clipper received this honor even before it was granted to the famous Mississippi riverboat, the Delta Queen.

But the end was near for her stay in Chicago. In 1990, at a federal marshal's auction, the million-dollar steamship was sold for $335,000. The receiver was the Hammond (Ind.) Port Authority.

A new marina, the third largest in the world, was being built there, and the Port Authority wanted the famous Clipper to serve as its "centerpiece." Aboard her would be shops, a museum, restaurants and a bed- and-breakfast facility.

That was in 1991, when the Hammond Port Authority had different leadership. Today, gambling has been legalized along Indiana's Lake Michigan waterways. A new group runs the marina, and a number of different "gaming interests" are being considered as operators of its gambling operations.

The City of Hammond is backing a group that wants to preserve the historic Milwaukee Clipper, but some of the major players in charge of the Hammond Marina are in favor of cutting up what some of them refer to as "nothing more than an old steel hull of a car ferry."

The fate of the Clipper now lies in the hands of the Indiana State Gaming Commission.

In less than 10 years, the ship first known as the Juniata and reborn in 1941 as the Milwaukee Clipper will be 100 years old if she survives the cutting torch. She's the last of her kind on the Great Lakes.

She's still a sound ship. Capt. Bob Briefer, who piloted the Clipper in her heyday, says he'd cross the ocean on her today. She'd still make a wonderful museum or shopping center. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of her owners.

We have the ability to save her, for those who remember her and for those who will follow.

Mark Howell is a producer of historical documentaries in Burbank, Calif. He produced the documentary "The Milwaukee Clipper."

If you are interested in the future of the Milwaukee Clipper, you may write to: Jack Thar Indiana State Gaming Commission 100 N. Senate Ave., Room N-180 Indianapolis, Ind. 46204-2211

Bob Nelson Hammond Port Authority 1111 Calumet Ave. Hammond, Ind. 46320

The Milwaukee Clipper makes her maiden voyage from Milwaukee in 1941. The liner was 361 feet long.

For three decades, the Milwaukee Clipper was the way to cross the lake in style and comfort. The 7 1/2-hour trip gave passengers time for relaxation on deck or in one of the many staterooms.

Copyright 1995
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