{"id":3180,"date":"2021-07-29T11:09:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T15:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=3180"},"modified":"2021-07-29T11:24:39","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T15:24:39","slug":"tale-of-two-ships-an-odd-dock-luedtke-marine-engineering-frankfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/tale-of-two-ships-an-odd-dock-luedtke-marine-engineering-frankfort\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Ships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An odd dock<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jed Jaworski
Current Contributor<\/strong>

In the quiet backwaters of Betsie Lake, just east of downtown Frankfort, lie the hulking remains of two great ships: the Tampico <\/em>and Adrian Iselin<\/em>, their stories forgotten to the passage of time. These ships had traveled the globe, served during the great world wars, protected life and property, only to finally rest\u2014nearly unnoticed\u2014here in the harbor for a half-century. They lie as a silent testament to a time when Frankfort and Elberta were bustling commercial ports with near-constant arrivals and departures of large ships that dwarfed even the downtown buildings.

First came the beautiful sailing vessels in the 1850s with their towering masts, whose picturesque sails could be seen unfurled as the ships would crowd the harbor to refuge from a storm and dry their sails after. With only the wind, they carried goods for the growing northern towns and brought many local raw materials\u2014including lumber, fish, and produce\u2014to the fast-growing cities elsewhere along the coastline. 

Then, beginning in the 1890s, a fleet of modern car ferries\u2014employed by the railroad companies\u2014carried passengers, automobiles, and entire freight trains across Lake Michigan from Elberta. During the same era, gleaming white passenger steamships also brought throngs of people from afar to resorts in the area, while steam freight vessels and fishing fleets continued to keep the wheels of commerce turning.

In 1930, E.R. \u201cDuke\u201d Luedtke founded the Luedtke Marine Engineering Company in Frankfort, making it homeport to a diverse array of tug boats, derricks, and scows that supported that industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Adrian
Adrian Iselin<\/strong>, circa 1914. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Altogether, it was a bustling commercial waterfront\u2014the whistles of ships and trains echoed beyond the towering forested hills that surrounded the harbor and provided for its snug, picturesque appeal. 

However, with changing times and the loss of the car ferries in 1982, commercial marine commerce soon declined in this area, save for the comings and goings of the Luedtke fleet.

The success of Duke Luedtke\u2019s enterprise resulted in the need for more space than their downtown Frankfort location could provide. With the steadfast determination and innovation for which he was recognized, Luedtke\u2019s company developed a plan to expand into a shallow and undeveloped corner of the harbor that had previously been used as a smoldering municipal landfill. Approvals were gained from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cap the landfill and dredge a channel and basin to a project depth of 10 feet, which would allow Luedtke\u2019s fleet access to an otherwise inaccessible area of the harbor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"E.R.
E.R. \u201cDuke\u201d Luedtke founded the Luedtke Marine Engineering Company in 1930 in Frankfort, making it homeport to a diverse array of tug boats, derricks, and scows that supported that industry. Photo courtesy of the Luedtke archives.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A marsh and dump do not make a good dock, though, so an improvement plan was developed that interestingly would alter the fate of two ships, the Tampico<\/em> and Adrian Iselin<\/em>, saving them from the torches of scrappers who soon threatened upon them.

The steamer Tampico<\/em> had been built at the Craig Shipbuilding Company in Toledo, Ohio, in 1900. Nearly a football field in length and built of riveted steel, it was a large and modern vessel for its day. The ship was owned and operated by the Globe and Pacific Northwest Steamship Company of Seattle, Washington, and ran on the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the northwest coast of the North American continent. 

At midnight on May 18, 1911, the Tampico<\/em> sank at anchor, despite the efforts of the tug Lumberman and fireboat Snoqualmie to keep it afloat. It was soon raised and put back in service, however. 
In 1917, the Tampico<\/em> was sold to the Crowell & Thurlow Company and dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean during the First World War. In 1922, it returned to service on the Great Lakes, where it had been built. 

Later, as the conflict worsened during World War II this time, the Tampico<\/em> was outfitted once again for ocean duty and sold to England\u2019s Ministry of War when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt essentially side-stepped Congress\u2019s Neutrality Acts, which had previously prohibited the export of \u201carms, ammunition, and implements of war,\u201d as well as foreign lending, in an attempt to keep the United States out of what had begun as a European conflict. By October 1941, however, the United States had committed itself to aiding the Allies through a program called \u201cLend-Lease,\u201d* and thus the Tampico<\/em> was dispatched over the Atlantic for a second time.

In 1946, after the war had ended, the Tampico came home again to the Great Lakes and sailed under the Nicholson Transit Company flag after a significant refit as a self-unloader. Then, in the early 1960s, the Tampico<\/em> was retired and stripped for conversion to a barge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tampico
Tampico <\/strong>at Seattle dock. Photo courtesy of the University of Washington libraries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Adrian Iselin<\/em> was built at the Detroit Shipbuilding Company in 1914. At 244 feet long and 2,072 gross tons, it was also built of riveted steel and powered by two Scotch fire tube boilers and a triple expansion steam engine of 1,000 horsepower. It had a full life trading on the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic seaboard. 

The Adrian Iselin<\/em> was acquired by the Nicholson Transit Company in 1940. In 1961, it was sold to a Chicago scrap broker and laid to rest beside the aged Tampico<\/em> at the foot of Riopelle Street on the Detroit River. There the two ships languished for three years, until being purchased by the Luedtke Engineering Company for a very bold plan.

The Wisconsin-Michigan Power Company wanted to construct a new nuclear power plant south of Kewaunee, Wisconsin, in 1967. They hired the Luedtke Marine Engineering Company to build and install huge cooling water intake pipes\u201414 feet in diameter and 1,750 feet long\u2014out into Lake Michigan, as well as other infrastructure. 

The site location was many miles from a safe harbor, which would leave the Luedtke workers, tugs, and equipment exposed to the sudden dangers of Lake Michigan weather. To overcome this formidable threat, Luedtke purchased four aged vessels to intentionally sink in a configuration, so as to provide a temporary safe harbor at the worksite\u2014the steamships Tampico, Adrian Iselin, Alfred E. Krupp<\/em>, and Saskatoon<\/em> were purchased and towed to the worksite. 

The brilliant plan had its risks, though\u2014primary of which was that the ships could break apart while sitting on the lake bottom, making for a costly recovery when the job was finished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tampico
The Tampico, Adrian Iselin, Saskatoon<\/strong>, and Alfred E. Krupp<\/strong>, all sunk in breakwall configuration off the Kewaunee nuclear power plant construction site, circa 1968. Photo courtesy of the Luedtke archives.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The four ships were sunk according to plan, creating a horseshoe-shaped harbor protecting the job site. Moreover, the Krupp <\/em>was still in good enough condition\u2014with a functioning power plant and cabins\u2014that it provided valued accommodations for Luedtke\u2019s workers and was \u201clit up like a Christmas tree at night,\u201d according to former employees.

When the work was completed in 1973, the four ships were raised without incident, despite five years having passed. The Krupp <\/em>provided shelter for work at two subsequent job sites; the Saskatoon<\/em> was towed to Kewaunee, Wisconsin, and scrapped. 

But Luedtke Engineering had another plan for the Tampico<\/em> and Adrian Iselin<\/em>: the ships would be towed to Frankfort, brought up the newly dredged channel, and sunk perpendicular to shore at the former municipal landfill site, thus creating two much needed 250-foot steel docks for the company\u2019s fleet\u2014remember that this was a marshland, so building a set of docks from scratch would have been costly and difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tampico
A Luedtke tug is tied beside the hull of the Tampico,<\/strong> which serves as a dock. Photo by Jed Jaworski.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, nearly 50 years later, these two ships\u2014which have seen such long, well-traveled, and storied lives\u2014rest their bones in Betsie Lake, and yet they still provide revered service to the Luedtke Engineering Company, which now itself is the last commercial marine enterprise hailing from the Frankfort harbor.\u00a0

So, the next time that you are paddling the harbor or looking down upon it from Google Earth, give a nod to these two old survivors from another century\u2014their untold stories and the decades of service they provided.

*During World War II, the United States had begun to provide significant military supplies and other assistance to the Allies in September 1940, even though the United States did not enter the war until December 1941\u2014much of this aid flowed to the United Kingdom and other nations already at war with Germany and Japan through an innovative program known as Lend-Lease, in which the United States would \u201clend\u201d the supplies to the British and other Allies, deferring payment on the \u201clease,\u201d and those ships were returned after the war.<\/em>

Featured Photo Caption:\u00a0<\/strong>Tampico<\/em>, sunk at Pacific coal dock on May 18, 1911. Photo courtesy of the University of Washington libraries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An odd dock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[241,48,41,37,254,38,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/3.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3TDCr-Pi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3180"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3190,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180\/revisions\/3190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}