Pillsbury, as Soo Line vessels, were based in Gladstone, Michigan. Andrew Carnegie was so threat- ened by this vulnerability that he formed his own Great Lakes ore carri- er, the Pittsburgh Steamship Compa- ny, for which he bought six vessels. These six, none of which was a whale- back, had the capacity to carry only a miniscule per cent of the ore Carnegie’s furnaces needed. The fleet did, however, provide Carnegie a mod- icum of insurance against predatory freight rates on his ore.19 Besides Rockefeller’s ownership and that of the Soo Line’s subsidiary, one whaleback, the Pathfinder, was owned by the Pickands-Mather Company, an independent Great Lakes bulk ore car- rier which had been the management agency of the ASBC’s whaleback fleet.
CIRCA 1907
Only one whaleback steamer designed to haul passengers was ever built. The whaleback Christopher Columbus was launched from West Superior, Wisconsin, on December 3, 1892–in time for the Chicago International Exposition in the summer of the following year. Following its tremendous success in hauling passengers between downtown Chicago and the Expo Grounds in South Chicago, the Christopher Columbusworked the remainder of its career in the Chicago to Milwaukee run. This ca. 1907 view from the bow shows the Christopher Columbusarriving in Chicago with a sizeable excursion crowd
soon-to-be-dominant Lake Superior
Iron Mines Co. on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota.17
Rockefeller immediately
noted the difference between the oil and iron ore businesses. Standard Oil owned both production and refinery as- sets but left the transportation to and from these assets to the railroads which Standard Oil strongly influ- enced (some say corrupted) but did not own or directly control.
Since the transportation of iron ore from the mines to the mills was such a critical piece of the business, Rocke- feller saw that he must back-integrate into lake and rail transportation. This is where Captain McDougall came in. While “learning about” the iron ore business in the early 1890’s, Rocke- feller became very conversant with the business community of Duluth. Mc- Dougall had had an opportunity to in- terest Rockefeller in his radical new design and Rockefeller obliged by pro- viding capital for the formation of the American Steel Barge Company. When it came time for Rockefeller to build his new fleet,
christened the
Bessemer Steamship Company, he im- mediately placed an order with ASBC for twelve steamships. By 1901 the Bessemer fleet had grown to 60 ships– including 34 (twelve steamers and 22 barges) whalebacks. This fleet was large enough to haul all the Rocke- feller ore as well as the ore offered it by the Carnegie interests.18 Interestingly, Rockefeller was not
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 77
content merely to buy new whalebacks as they came off the chocks in West Su- perior; he also purchased two used whaleback steamers in 1896 from the Minneapolis,
St. Steamship Company,
Neilson (launched as the Washburn) and the Henry Cort (launched as the Pillsbury). The MSP&B was the Great Lakes bulk carrier subsidiary of the Minneapolis,
St. Paul & Sault Marie Railway. The Washburn and the
The whalebacks and U.S. Steel This sets the table for the events
Paul & Buffalo the James P.
St.
which followed in early 1901. Financier J.P. Morgan saw in the emerging but fragmented American steel industry an opportunity: consolidation. In the same way the now-defunct Blockbuster Video empire largely consolidated the mom-and-pops which constituted the video rental store business, Morgan pulled together the disparate iron ore mines, Great Lakes bulk carriers, con- necting railroads and iron and steel producers into a new entity. This new venture was called the United States Steel Corporation. Morgan’s new venture consisted of Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel, Rockefeller’s Bessemer Steel, Judge El- ton Gary’s Illinois Steel, a 65% interest in 104 iron mines in Minnesota and the
In this excellent portrait, the whaleback excursion steamer Christopher Columbus is shown underway from Chicago, Illinois, heading towards its port-of-call in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This shot looks at the bow of the vessel on a very calm Lake Michigan.
CIRCA 1911
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