A Pair of Tugs

 This post is going to be a little out of order as I wanted to post these before posting the next ship.

The next ship found me on the Rouge River after catching her at Riverside, while I was waiting, I took a picture of each of the tugs docked there.  This one is the Wisconsin.

And this one is the Pennsylvania.   Both of these tugs are used to help ships on the Rouge River.  They will also help ships in the area.

A Pair of Great Lakes Tugs

 I saw that the Wilfred Sykes would be visiting the steel mill on the Rouge River and I had the day off, so I decided that I would go down to catch her.  While I was waiting for her at the Jefferson Avenue Bridge, I saw that there were a pair of tugs nearby.  I took a couple of pictures.

This is one of the newer tugs owned by Great Lakes Towing.  It is the Pennsylvania.  I think they are eventually going to replace all of their tugs which will be a shame because they had cool looking tugs.

And the Wisconsin was behind her.  Again, this is another fairly new tug.

Just Some Tugs

 I only had a brief wait for the Oberstar.  But I was in a good spot.

I could get some pictures of the Great Lakes tugs that were docked.

The Wisconsin.

The Pennsylvania and Oberstar.

A Gaggle of Great Lakes Towing Tugs

 Across the river from where the Kaye Barker docked is where the Great Lakes Towing tugs call home in Detroit.

Detroit has gotten a couple of the new tugs.  I have a feeling they are going to replace all of them eventually.

I still like the looks of the old tugs.

These remind me too much of ocean tugs.

But they still look cool.

The Tug New York Pushes a Barge

 On Friday night, I saw that a ship I wanted to catch was still docked in Detroit.  I was kind of waffling about catching her and then I saw that another ship would be passing.  So I decided to head down to Del Ray to catch them.

As I arrived at Del Ray, I saw that there was a barge being pushed down the river.  I was going to use my drone for the docked ship, so I decided to get my drone up to catch the tug and barge.

This was the tug New York and I don't think the barge had a name.  I know it was a double hulled barge, so I think it was carrying ashphalt.  It was being flanked by the Great Lakes Towing tug Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin is a fairly new tug and I'm not sure which of the Great Lakes tugs in Detroit she replaced.  I want to say that was Superior.

She looks like one of the ocean tugs.

Another angle of her.

I'm not sure who owns the New York but I've seen her a few times on AIS.

This may be the first time I caught her on this blog.

A Brief Stop in Lake Geneva

My cousin was getting married this weekend and he was having the wedding in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  I'd never been there before, so it made for an experience.  It was a pretty cool looking town and I think I'd like to explore it a little more sometime.

 Apparently they had a snow sculpture contest a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, we had a couple warming days and there wasn't much to see of the them.  They also had an ice castle that you could walk around in.  It also looked like it would have been cooler a couple of weeks ago.

 Lake Geneva was named after a town in New York because an early settler named John Brink thought it looked similar.  It was named Lake Geneva to avoid confusion with Geneva, Illinois.   In 1954, it was one of three finalists for the US Air Force Academy.  Hugh Hefner built a resort here.  The town itself serves as a resort town for Chicago and Milwaukee.

 One of the reasons I wanted to stop in town was because Gary Gygax was from here.  He was one of the founders of Dungeons and Dragons.  Supposedly there is a memorial to him but I think it was buried in the snow.

It was a pretty nice looking town.

And the Littoral Combat Ships

I found the spot in Menominee where I could get pictures of the Littoral Combat Ships.  I didn't really want to walk too far in the heat, so I wanted to find a spot where I could just get a picture of them.

 First up is LCS-17.  This one will be known as the USS Indianapolis and is named after the ship of the same name that was sunk in World War II.  She is also the fourth ship to be named USS Indianapolis.  The one in World War II was a cruiser and was tasked with carrying the atomic bomb to Tinian.  Because of the secrecy of her mission, her whereabouts was unknown.  Her captain was told that he was travelling through a safe area, so he didn't need to take submarine precautions.  She was torpedoed and because of security precautions, it was a while before the Navy was able to rescue her crew.  Her captain was court martialed but later exonerated after his death.
The last USS Indianapolis was a Los Angeles class attack submarine.

 Next up is LCS-13, the USS Wichita.  She is the third ship to be named after Wichita, Kansas.  The first ship was a heavy cruiser that saw action during World War II and was built in 1939.  Prior to the US entry to the war, she participated in Neutrality Patrols.  The first part of the war, she spent on Atlantic Convoys.  During the Battle of Casablanca, she engaged the French battleship the Jean Bart.  In 1943, she was transferred to the Pacific.   She was a participant in the battle of Okinawa.  She was decommissioned in 1959.
The next Wichita was an oiler.

The last ship is LCS-11, the USS Sioux City.  She is the first ship to be named after Sioux City, Iowa.

All of these ships are in various stages of construction.

The Great Midwestern Fires

As  I said, I was on a quest for history.  As I was mentioning it in a few of those posts, you wouldn't think that there would be a connection, but sure enough there was.

 Pretty much everybody has heard of the Great Chicago Fire.  The fire there started at about 9:00 P.M. on October 8th of 1871 in or around a small barn belonging to the O'Leary family.  Legend has it that it was started by a lantern kicked over by one of their cows.  That spot is somewhere in the left hand side of this picture of Chicago.
A combination of dry weather and the fact that many of the structures in Chicago at the time were built of wood caused the fire to spread.  Not only were some of the buildings made out of wood but many of the sidewalks were as well.  This was compounded by the fact that Chicago only had 171 firefighters that manned 17 horse drawn fire engines.   The firefighters were sent to the wrong locations and the fire spread.
As the fire spread, the city's water main was destroyed.  After a gallant effort by the city's fire fighters, it was put out on October 10th.  By that time, 3.3 square miles of city was destroyed and up to 300 people were killed.
The O'Leary legend was pretty much debunked although it's still not clear was caused the original fire.  One main result of the fire was that Chicago was remade using more modern city planning techniques, hence the fact that it is pretty much a grid.

 On the same day as the start of the Chicago fire, the city of Port Huron would also find itself on fire.  This fire would cause fires that spread across the thumb region of Michigan.  This particular fire would consume 1.2 million acres of land and kill up to 200 people (of which 50 were from Port Huron).

 Also on October 8, 1871, the town of Manistee, Michigan would find itself engulfed in flame.  One of the casualties was the original lighthouse that was built on the pier to the left.  The city was pretty much destroyed but rebuilt.

 Probably due to the droughts that was plaguing the other towns, the city of Holland would find itself on fire from October 8th to October 9th of 1871.

Sometimes, when I am doing posts like this, I have to use other people's pictures.  This particular picture comes from Wikipedia.  On October 8th, 1871 (notice a pattern here?), the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin would find itself swallowed by flames.  There were a series of forest fires to the west of the town that were directed to the town by the winds at the time.  This fire was probably the deadliest of the four fires that started on that day as 1,200 to 2,500 people perished as a result of that fire.  They were unable to identify hundreds of residents and they were buried in a mass grave near the city.  This was probably the worst fire in the United States.

Not on the same day, but a few days later, the City of Windsor, Ontario would find itself surrounded by flames.  This fire would end up destroying the center of the city.  I would guess that Windsor was probably suffering the droughts that were plaguing the rest of the towns that burnt during that period of time.

Now, this is were the history takes a turn for the bizarre.  In 1836, the village of Singapore, Michigan was founded by Oshea Wilder.  He was hoping to build a city that would rival Chicago or Milwaukee in size.  At its height there would be three mills, two hotels, some general stores and Michigan's first schoolhouse.  The sign above is one of the few clues that there was a town here.

I can only guess about why the city was called Singapore.  If I were going to take a stab, I would say that it was a town located at the end of a peninsula like Singapore. 

This sign provided by the Michigan Historical Society is another clue of Singapore, Michigan.  In 1838, the Bank of Singapore was created.  This was known as a wildcat bank that was allowed to print its own money before the Federal Government stepped in and stopped that practice.  It would have $50,000 of Singapore Bank notes in circulation at its earliest point.  Shortly after the Civil War, the bank was involved in a scandal as the Federal Government added the requirement that banks had to be able to cover 1/3 of the notes they had in circulation.

In 1842, there was a forty day blizzard that would have wiped out the city had there not been a shipwreck that supplied the city during that period.  In 1846, the town would change ownership.

By 1871, the town would boast a harbor and several hundred residents.  I think one of the ships in this pictures was the schooner Octavia and that was used to carry lumber over to Chicago.  This particular picture comes from the Historical Museum in Saugatuck.

Now, what does a town with a banknote producing bank, a schooner and a lumber mill have to do with the fires you might ask?  Well, Chicago, Peshtigo and Holland all needed to be rebuilt.  And rebuilding would require lots of lumber.  Singapore had lots of lumber to sell.  Unfortunately, they sold too much lumber and pretty much deforested the area.  If you didn't notice, there are lots of dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline.  That's because it gets pretty windy.  Because the protective forests were gone, it took almost three years for the city to be buried in the sands of what are now known as the Saugatuck Dunes.  This made this one of the more interesting ghost towns in Michigan.

Eventually, many of the residents of Singapore would move across the river over to Saugatuck.

I guess one of the things that I like about history is that there are many lessons that can be applied to modern times.  One of the lessons here is that we shouldn't mess with nature too much.  Sometimes, nature has a way of biting us back.  The other lesson is that you can under prepare for major fires.  It seems like there is a current trend of cutting fire fighters and I have a feeling that may come back to bite us.  Another thing about history is that sometimes unconnected events can react in unimagined ways.  Who would think a series of fires would lead to the disappearance of an unrelated town?

Michigan Exposures Hits the Road - Day 3

I thought that I would be catching the Nickel Plate as she was leaving Chicago's Union Station.   As it turned out, that trip ended up being cancelled.  However, we decided to come down to the Chicago area anyway.  I got to see parts of Michigan that I've never seen before.  I went through Munising, Marquette, Escanaba and Menominee.  I took a few pictures along the way.

I ended continuing through Wisconsin and saw parts of it that I've never seen before.  It was pretty cool.  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of that.

The USS Wisconsin

The main reason why I chose Norfolk was because I wanted to see some Naval vessels.  I get to see ships all the time but I don't get to see Naval ships all that often.  I really want to go back at some point.

 The first ship that I ran across the was the USS Wisconsin.  After a long career, she serves as museum ship in Norfolk.

 The Wisconsin is the second ship to bear that name and she is the third ship of the Iowa class.  Her keel was laid on January 25, 1941 at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.  She was launched December 7, 1943 and commissioned on April 16, 1944.  Her sponsor was the wife of the Governor of Wisconsin at the time.

 After a shakedown cruise, she joined the Pacific Fleet in December of 1944.  She did take part in part of the Phillippines Invasion.  She then participated in attacks off the Japanese coast.  She arrived in Tokyo Bay three days after the official surrender.

 In 1948, she was placed in the Reserve Fleet but found herself removed from the Reserve Fleet with the start of the Korean War.  After the Korean War, she was used as a training ship. In 1956, her bow was damaged and replaced by the bow of the USS Kentucky which would have been the 5th Iowa Class.   She would end up being the last battleship until her placement in reserve in 1958.

 She was equipped with 20 5" guns but 8 of those were removed when she was reactivated.

 She was also equipped with 9 16" guns.  Those were the largest US Naval guns. 

 In 1986, she was reactivated as part of President Reagan's efforts to expand the US Navy.   She was then equipped with Tomahawk and Harpoon Missiles.  She would end up serving in Operation Desert Storm.  After Desert Storm, she was deactivated along with all her sisters.

Currently she serves as a museum ship, but could be reactivated with some work...if necessary.  I wanted to take the tour of her, but time didn't permit.

The John B. Aird Enters Superior Harbor

The Duluth area is called the Twin Harbors because next door is the town of Superior, Wisconsin which also has port facilities.  The combined ports make for one of the busiest seaports in the United States.  After a nap, I decided to head over to Superior because I saw that I had a chance to catch the John B. Aird as she headed in.

 I think one of the things I'm going to like about here is the different angles I will get for taking pictures of ships.  I don't normally get to have buildings in the foreground.   Here the Aird is coming off Lake Superior.  I'm not sure if you can tell, but there is still ice behind the Aird.  The lighthouse is the Wisconsin Point lighthouse.

 A headshot of the Aird.

 Here she is about to make the entrance into the harbor.

 Except that she ended up turning around in order to back up into the slip.

 But it gave me a chance to get a beam shot with the lighthouse.  I guess it is not normally for ships to back into the harbor.

 But it was explained in a way that makes sense.

 So she's heading into the harbor.  Sadly, it didn't quite give me the views I wanted though.

 But still pretty cool.

 The water was fairly smoothe enough to give me some nice reflections.

 A closeup of her pilothouse.

 And her bow.  If there is one common factor about Algoma boats, it's that they are pretty hard working boats and they look it.

 This is the shot I wanted but I got it here.

 She backs into her slip.

 This gives me a nice reflection.

 I kind of like this shot because it's another that I don't often get.

One more shot.

It sounds like it is going to be a busy day tomorrow.  So I hope that I get some nice shots.