1889                                    Topeka                                1916

Wooden Great Lakes bulk freighter

Built at Milwaukee Ship Yard Co., Hull 30
Launched

240’ LOA, 228’ LBP, 36’ beam, 20’ depth
1 deck, hold beams, coal-fired boilers, fore and aft compound engine, 755 IHP

Enrolled at Milwaukee WI May 6, 1889 (#111)
228.3 x 36.0 x 19.2, 1376.17 GT, 1111.08 NT     US 145510     to:
J. B. Merrill, Milwaukee WI

Entered service 1889

Management of vessel 1898 to W. E. Fitzgerald (his estate after his death in 1902)

Sold 1906 to Lake Shore Stone Co., Milwaukee WI

Converted 1912 to self-unloader at Sturgeon Bay WI by Leatham Smith Dock Co.

Sunk Aug 15, 1916 in collision with str. Christopher off Sandwich ON opposite Clark Street, Detroit MI, Detroit River.  Topeka upbound with cargo of coal, Christopher downbound with iron ore.  No lives lost.  Hull dynamited to remove a menace to navigation.

See history in Great Lakes Ships We Remember II p. 356

W458