SS Chief Wawatam
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SS Chief Wawatam was a coal-fired train ferry and icebreaker that operated in the Straits of Mackinac in 1911-1984. Her home port was St. Ignace, Michigan, and she shuttled back and forth during her entire working life between that port and Mackinaw City, Michigan.
[edit] History
The Chief Wawatam was designed by Great Lakes marine architect Frank Kirby. She was launched in Toledo, Ohio by the Toledo Shipping Company on August 26, 1911, and went into service for the Mackinac Transportation Company on October 18, 1911. The Mackinac Transportation Company was a joint venture of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway, the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and the Michigan Central Railroad, the three railroads that serviced the Straits of Mackinac.
Year-round train ferry service in the Straits of Mackinac was a significant challenge because of the heavy ice buildup experienced by these straits in winter. The Chief Wawatam was designed to break ice floes with her bow propellor, which could both maneuver the boat and suck water out from underneath the ice to enable it to be broken through force of gravity.
The Chief Wawatam was 338 feet in length and had a beam of 62 feet. Her three propellors, two in the stern and one on the bow, were driven by coal-fired triple-expansion steam engines. The Chief is believed to have been the last hand-fired, coal-burning boat in commercial service on the Great Lakes. Other coal-burning vessels that survived longer in revenue service, such as the SS Badger, had automatic stokers.
Need by shippers for the Straits of Mackinac train ferry service provided by the Mackinac Transportation Company declined following construction of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957. After cross-Straits of Mackinac railroad car ferry service ended in 1984, the Chief lay in mothballs for several years in Mackinaw City. She was towed to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 1989 and cut down at that port to serve as a barge. At the time of her cutting-down she was one of the last survivors of the Great Storm of 1913.
One of the Chief's triple-expansion engines was withheld from salvage and, after being restored to operating condition, was placed on display in 2005 at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
