RARE S.S. City of Grand Rapids Passenger/Excursion Ship Snapshot Photo Goodrich For Sale

Key facts:

• Built: 1912 by the American Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio.

• Type: Steel-hulled passenger and package freight vessel — much larger and more “ship-like” than the tiny 1879 steamer wreck.

• Size: ~310 feet long with 5 decks, powered by coal-fired boilers and a triple-expansion steam engine — more like an excursion liner you’d see on postcards.

• Service: Operated on the Great Lakes (Chicago, Milwaukee, Benton Harbor, and other routes) as part of several steamship lines over its lifetime — so it would have been used for transporting passengers across lakes and possibly for “cruise-like” excursions in mid-century.

• Ownership history:

  • Originally sailed for Graham & Morton Transportation Co..

  • Later part of Goodrich Transit Co. and then served on the Chicago-Milwaukee Steamship Line.

• Fate: Sold for scrap in 1951 and towed away from Benton Harbor, Michigan — exactly in the era your photo dates from.