[Music] this is the Milwaukee Clipper one of the last remaining passenger Steamers on the Great Lakes originally built way back in 1904 and rebuilt in 1940 this ship broke speed records and captured the hearts of the millions who sailed on her the ship has a soul when you step on board the ship you realize that's not just a hunk of metal yeah it draws you in it really does in this video we're going to dive into the history of the oldest surviving Great Lakes passenger vessel learn about the long and illustrious career it had under two completely different identities and take a detailed tour of the museum ship today we'll be climbing deep into the lowest parts of this historic vessel and seeing the hard work going into keeping one of the most important pieces of Great Lakes history afloat after 120 years get all the help we can get down here we need to get our name out there cuz if not this ship might be going to The [Music] [Music] [Applause] Breakers in late spring 2023 I was invited to visit the Milwaukee Clipper at her current birth in mosan Michigan it's been over 80 years since she became the Milwaukee Clipper and almost 120 years since her first construction as the Juniata she's clearly worn out and tired but the first impression is that she's well-loved her port side was freshly painted her starboard side was not yet painted at the time of filming and does look a bit rough but it was painted shortly afterward I was invited to come out here with my wife and [Music] son along with my friends Tom and Kayla from hisob brick to tour this ship and share its Legacy with the world the Clipper wasn't always the Clipper however when she was first built in 1904 she was almost a completely different vessel and resembled the more classical Great Lake Steamers of the time such as the famous Katen or the infamous Eastland the origins of the Clipper can be traced all the way back to 1871 when the Pennsylvania Railroad began operating steam ships on the Great Lakes to expand their booming Transportation Network initially they had three small Steamers the China India and Japan operating under the company name Erie and Western transportation company however due to the iconic anchor emblem on the bow of these ships they were more commonly known as the anchor line not to be confused with the Scottish shipping line of the same name these ships sailed the American ports of the great lak stopping in Erie Pennsylvania Cleveland Ohio and in Michigan they hailed in Detroit maol Island and several other ports all along their way to duth Minnesota business grew steadily for the anchor line as immigrants moved West and tourists flocked to the different parts of the Great Lakes and by 1902 the trio of small 210 ft vessels were becoming Antiquated and incapable of fulfilling the growing passenger demand it was clear to the Pennsylvania Railroad that the anchor line would need to replace these 31-year-old vessels they entered into a contract with Naval architect Frank Kirby who had already gained Fame designing several prestigious great laks vessels to design a replacement ship with the option to build additional ships from the same template three ships came from this design the tyan esta the Juniata and the octura all named after rivers and towns in Pennsylvania the tyan esta was the first ship built by the Detroit ship building company and launched at the tail end of 1902 and in service by the summer of 1903 even while Testa was under construction the order for a second ship was placed with only minor changes this was the Juniata she was built in a different Shipyard the American ship building company of Cleveland Ohio however the the anchor line loved the power plant of the tyan esta so much that they requested that junia's engines and boilers be produced separately by the Detroit ship building company where the tyan esta was built the body of the Juniata was built incredibly fast her ke was laid in October of 1904 and only 3 months later on December 17th she was launched from her ke to her main deck the ship was made of steel the lower parts of the ship were for ballast baggage and Engineering spaces with her main deck being used mostly for Freight early in the juni's career a large compartment for automobiles was added just forward of the engines now everything above the main deck was made of wood the deck above the main deck was known as the birth deck and used almost exclusively for you guest it cabins and births with a barber shop towards the AFT end unlike the Excursion Steamers that we see plying the Southern Shores of Lake Michigan at this time whose voyages were usually less than a day a roundtrip Voyage aboard the Juniata between Buffalo and duth would take a full week therefore it was necessary to treat the Juniata as a small ocean liner with each passenger getting private accommodations the saloon deck above the birth deck had a music room forward finished in Mahogany with a piano and library at the AFT end of it behind that were larger State rooms and after of that was a social hall with stairs going down back to the birth deck and two sets of doors moving aft into the Dining Saloon the Dining Saloon was initially capable of seating 170 people at once and considered to be one of the finest dining rooms on the Great Lakes the most striking feature of the room was the wide vated ceiling running the full length of the saloon the arched walls on the ends of the vaulted ceiling depict scenes from the 1844 song the blue Juniata about a young Native American Girl paddling a canoe down the Juniata River singing about a heroic Warrior one of the two murals depicted the girl singing in a canoe while the other scene depicted the Warrior on the bank of the river waiting for her at the aftermost end of the deck was a smoke room which contained a bar the deck above had a cruise deck house and six parlor Suites the ship carried eight lifeboats not nearly enough for all on board but this was honestly common a board all passenger ships prior to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 The Vessel was sent on her delivery trip on May 14th 1905 sailing from Cleveland to Detroit there her older sister the tyan esta sat at the dock loading up the Juniata approached and tied up alongside of her waiting once tyan esta Departed the juniana pulled into the dock and on May 31st she set sail on her maiden voyage from Buffalo to duth Juniata raced through the waters of the Great Lakes at a speed of 18 knots or about 20 mph powering her single screw was a 2,500 horsepower quadruple expansion engine built by the Detroit ship building company although today the vast majority of the vessel has been rebuilt or replaced the original engine is still deep below her decks making our way down into the engine room right now so of course we have the engine that dates back to 1904 the engine actually is the oldest part of the ship cuz it was actually built few months before the ship was built so this is the oldest part of the ship it's the heart of the ship as well uh you got your engine you got your crank shaft um right through there is the propeller the 15t propeller most of the Machinery in her engineering spaces are her original 1904 and 1905 machines with various small modernizations retro fitted over the course of her long career I just cannot imagine working down here with these engines running and how hot it would have been the biggest cylinder the fourth cylinder is 65 in in diameter it was all manually oiled it was not automatic so you had to have somebody go around and oil the engine while it was moving it was a quiet engine as well they're quiet but reliable engines they were things you could count on unlike the modern day diesels these were ones that you know could get you from point A to point B without you having to call mechanic what why don't you just switch these engines on real quick for us sure let's see them in action just go just go fire them up sure we just have to turn on the first light so I can see the manual powering this massive engine were four boilers here's your Builder plate for the boilers built by American steamship company 1905 initially these were coal fired but during the conversion to the Milwaukee Clipper the boilers were converted to burn [Music] oil here's the original Steam gaug [Music] the anchor line ran her until shortly before 1910 when the anchor line introduced a third ship to the fleet the octura like the tyan esta and the Juniata she was built from the same template set out by Frank Kirby the three ships sailed together until the Panama Canal Act was passed in 1915 which attacked us monopolies and forbade railroad companies from owning ships as a result the Pennsylvania Railroad was forced to dissol the anchor line in 1916 and sell off its assets including the Juniata and her sisters the Great Lakes Transit company was formed at this time essentially buying out all four Great Lakes Shipping Lines that were divested by railroad companies which also bought the three anchorline vessels and kept their service essentially status quo that was until the early 1920s when the ships were remodeled adding an extra deck of cabins to the upper deck and removing the vaulted ceiling of the Dining Saloon throughout the decade the ship was overhauled several times being pulled out of service for expensive modifications and the early 1930s showed a significant drop in passenger travel with the Great Depression the tyan esta was laid up while the other two continued on the final nail on the coffin for these three vessels came in 1934 with a shipwreck but one that was fairly far away fire at Sea the world's greatest horror of Horrors the oceanliner Maro Castle sailing from Havana Cuba to New York City caught fire off of New Jersey with a loss of 135 passengers and crew after the disaster the United States passed new regulations to prevent such a disaster from repeating US government said no more wooden superstructures on ships either that or you have to install fire suppression systems and this was in the 1930s during the Great Depression and they many of these companies just couldn't do that so they had to sell off all their ships now all three ships sat in layup with their Futures uncertain in the late 1930s Max and Mark mcke entered the story they were two brothers who owned the Wisconsin and Michigan steamship company and were looking for two new steam ships to replace their older ones they hired a naval architect named George sharp from New York to design a fully fireproof vessel for their new Fleet but it proved to be too expensive to build a new ship so instead they asked George to create plans to adapt an older vessel to fit this new design Juniata was towed from layup in Buffalo to the manok ship building company in Wisconsin where it was to be completely modernized she was stripped down to her Hull with all traces of the wooden structure removed and trashed her engines were kept as we saw earlier and her cold fired boilers were converted to burn bunker sea oil the structure that was built on the old bones of the Juniata was Thoroughly Modern for the time and designed to be streamlined it was the first Art Deco passenger ship on the Great Lakes it was the first all fireproof vessel on the great lakes and it was also the first All Steel passenger ship on the Great Lakes so lot of first with this one her structure was now all steel inside and out with her passenger accommodations decorated with ceramic tile like the famous ocean liners America and United States most materials that went into the new ship were fireproof with Advanced Fire supression Systems throughout the vessel despite the extreme care for safety put into the designing of the vessel Emergency Services were abundant four large lifeboats were placed on the deck after of the bridge to be launched with wellin davits seven life rafts were located after of that and an emergency catamaran boat was placed on the after sunnd deck today the four primary lifeboats are still on their davits these are the original lifeboats and Lifeboat davits the davits were actually built by the wellin company and is the same company that built the Lifeboat davits for the Titanic and several other ships of the era when she left the shipyard Bound for her christening in Milwaukee she was a brand new ship completely unrecognizable from the old Juniata unfortunately the same cannot be said for the oct terera although also bought by the mck her plans were abandoned when World War II broke out she was commandeered first by the US Coast Guard in 1942 and then by the Army the following year serving in the Pacific Theater as a troop transport after the war the OCTA was mothballed in the Sassoon Bay fleet of San Francisco and despite attempts from the mck to reacquire her she was finally scrapped in 1952 but the Juniata went on she sailed into Milwaukee Wisconsin under the command of her first captain of her second life Captain Allan hawky a tough and seasoned Captain who ran a tight ship waiting for her in Milwaukee was a massive celebration and here the ship would be renamed now Mark mcke one of the ship's new co-owners was on the board of P Am Airways at the time and as a nod to the company he copied the airlines naming convention for their aircraft you take the main city on the pl's route and add the word Clipper to it at the end to give it an air of sleek reliability therefore here in Milwaukee the old Juniata was christened the Milwaukee Clipper with Max mck's daughter Patricia breaking a bottle of Wisconsin cream against the hull and splashing every dignitary there as well [Music] the Clipper then set off for an inaugural cruise for 3 hours to celebrate with a full 900 passengers aboard as the festivities ended the Milwaukee Clipper went right to work with Captain hawky taking her out on her maiden voyage under this new identity departing at midnight when the Clipper soar into mosan Michigan she broke the record for fastest crossing a record that she would break again later in her career her route changed a couple of times throughout this career initially she ran between Milwaukee and M Keegan but that was changed at times to the route from Milwaukee to Chicago other times she ran one route on the weekends and others on the weekday here she comes the 361 ft Queen of the Great Lake the Milwaukee Clipper quickly became a favorite among passengers traveling Lake Michigan with the simple charm of the Interiors the comfortable amenities and its streamlined exterior the cabin deck and sports deck were the two primary decks for passengers stepping through the gangway doors and coming aboard through the main Lounge on the cabin deck the passengers are greeted with a friendly welcome ins set in the floor's Mosaic your host afloat this is the ship's main Lounge a large open space decorated with an array of glass aluminum and chrome and all in the art deco style the room is mostly decorated with Furniture rather than fixture and the furniture was a centerpiece on this ship it was designed by Warren MacArthur a student of Frank Lloyd Wright MacArthur also designed the furniture for the SS America and it's often been said that the furniture alone is worth more than the ship itself most if not all of the furniture still has its original upholstery on the forward end of the lounge is the purser's office and baggage room standard Staples on passenger ships these were the primary offices for passenger Affairs so in this low closet up here this was the first ship toore telephone on any ship which was crazy at the time cuz you could call somebody from the water to land you could call anybody and this was actually kind of scary to people at that time thinking that you could communicate to people like that today in the lounge visitors to the museum can flip through period magazines and watch the sunset over the harbor moving after the lounge is the buffet restaurant this space had seating for 185 people and featured an extensive menu which often included things like lamb custard or one of the most popular dishes broiled white fish with lemon butter another really popular meal uh was spaghetti for a first class ship spaghetti was not always seen as a top-notch food um but it was actually one of the things that they sold the most of and and pie so they had a lot of good food on board the ship getting in pie Sailors were never without good food the meals were prepared on the deck below down in the galley on the main deck most of the machinery and appliances are still in place today this Galley prepared 2,500 meals a day as the ship operated Around the Clock Brock how many uh how many cooks would they have in here uh Cooks say about on duty they about six Cooks on duty oh paint paint that's what's for dinner once the food was ready it was brought up to the restaurant above by a hand cranked dumb waiter and ready to be served it was served cafeteria style with servers behind the counter and once you had what you wanted a bus boy brought your tray over to your table for you even though she's a lake fery the Clipper had a table setting like that of an oce liner these are the dishes that would have been out for most of the things the the main plate the cup and saucer for coffee the water craft uh either a water glass or it was also used for orange juice and and so on uh the little wooden spoon as a a throwaway the bib and the napkin with this silverware that was used on the ship so as with so many passenger ships the captain had his own table where he would dine with certain passengers of his choosing the Captain's Table is this front table and that was kept reserved for the captain and his two couple guests that he had these were for Micah at a time when for Micah was a brand new thing in 1940 the end result was that uh putting the scus rose in set into this as a smooth function this was unheard of at that time we even have a photograph of the captain dining with passengers aboard ironically he's not seated at the Captain's Table in this shot though dinners were served with a first class view of the sunset as the Clippers steamed across the lake after their dinner a passenger would exit the restaurant back into the lounge moving forward into the ship's grand staircase a visitor today would see that the staircase is crowned with a mural of the Great Lakes featuring landmarks from its many Shores and prominently showing the Clipper in her green color scheme this mural was added in the 1950s after she was painted green however in the 1940s the ship sailed as white on the floor is a tile mosaic of the Clipper as well staying on the cabin deck we can move outboard which would take us to passenger cabins but first let's take a stop into the restrooms the women's room is on the PCH side and the men's room is on the starboard at the time of our visit these rooms were being worked on so they're not quite as presentable as they once were a curiosity to note about these rooms is that the men's room is pink and the lady's room is blue today we associate blue with men and pink with women but prior to the 1950s it was a little more ambiguous blue was a feminine color and pink was seen more masculine the switch didn't come until the 1950s and 60s when female celebrities started popular Rising pink and now the color choices of the Milwaukee Clippers lavatory seem odd either way they'll get the job done forward of the restrooms we come to a Lobby and stairwell in the midst of the passenger cabin spaces there are 36 cabins running along the outboard corridors of the Clipper each with either two or three birds although streamlined in design these rooms have all the comfortable amenities that you would need at Sea especially when a voyage is only around 5 hours there's a picture there always shows these two young pretty young ladies that are there there weren't very many pretty young ladies that got in their gotas and slept in one of these things but we do know they had a lot of kids that they put to bed so the parents could go and play cards or dance or just drink rooms had their bunks a toilet electric fans desks and a wash basin the museum today has two of these cabins restored but they're working on more we have plans for finishing all of them but right now uh that's not high on our on our restoration list simply because uh we haven't gotten any use for them right now running parallel to the outboard cabin corridors are two additional corridors of Lounge seating with folding bunks at top them you may notice that this space resembles a rail car and it's no surprise as these spaces were inspired by the famous pman rail cars and today we often refer to the space as the pman lounge even though it was not ever associated with pman they made them just like a train car so they brought them up here and they didn't fit and why didn't they fit was because of the camber this is a steamship and so the deck slope and so they had to take them all back and and remake the bottoms of the so they sloped 112 passengers could sit in these seats for daytime voyages and the bunks could sleep 46 By Night curtains could be drawn to give privacy with each bunk having its own personal light and air vent the demand fluctuated greatly for these bunks for most Cross Lake voyages the trip was too short and the bunks weren't very popular for the longer trips up from Chicago there weren't enough of these bunks for everyone who wanted one the four passenger corridors running parallel all LED forward to the club Lounge the forward most end of the cabin deck which was exclusive to the passengers who upgraded their fair to a cabin or a bunk you got pretty good service everywhere but up here during the day if you sat in one of these these These are lounge chair and you press the button you promptly got a somebody to come and wait on you and they took your order and brought it from way back at the galley in the summer months the lounge service was extended into the folkal just outside where waiters could serve Club Lounge customers in the winter the only passenger bookings available were for the club lounge and the main lounge and the buffet restaurant aft were shut down in order to store automobiles which we'll get to in a few minutes still passengers could look at out the large Windows of the club Lounge watch the winter Seas crashing and stay warm and dry inside the only other space of significance on this deck that we've missed is the fan tail welcome to the fantail on the fantail there's a lot of equipment but the centerpiece is this wheel gear this is the emergency steering gear it would have been used in the case that the steam powered steering gear down below failed this wheel would take four people to move the large steel Rudder down below and to communicate orders we have have a voice tube right here and a sound powerered telephone over here and at one point they did have a Chad bur up here but it has since been removed ascending the stairs either in the forward Lobby or up the grand staircase will put you on the sports deck the forward most part of this deck was the children's playroom featuring toys games and painted murals on the wall they were painted over in the'80s one day in I think 2006 2007 before my time the paint was peeling and they actually started to see these faces underneath the paint and they put two of new together and said oh my gosh there's paintings underneath here so they scraped and scraped and put lots of hours into restoring these but they get the exact tints of the faces and of the uh paintings down so these are the original colors that they were painted back in 1941 preserved under paint for 40 years and here they are now the younger that always always enjoy the Clipper playroom the colorful playroom is appreciated by parents whoo for the children may have a wonderful time here of course a nurse was always on duty to supervise the children as they played just after the playroom is the theater a partition stood between the playroom and the theater but if the movie being screened was a Kids film that partition was removed so that children could go back and forth between playing and watching the film generally children's films were screened in the mornings with firstr run Hollywood films being screened in the afternoons and evenings when movies weren't being played and the ship was close enough to shore they would screen live television instead these seats were all manufacturing in Grand Rapids Michigan one thing that's interesting about them is these little these little oak wood strips were seen as a fire hazard in the Coast Guard was very anal about any wood on the ship they they they fought them and they went all the way to uh the the Supreme Court and they were allowed to have these um on board the ship the theater could seat 144 people in the early days of the Clipper service but a part of this space was cut out later in its career to add two Steward cabins so we're the chief stewards are own the SS Milwaukee Clipper uh back in 1941 this actually would would have been the theater the theater has ran the other side of this wall in 1942 they Shrunk the theater and they gave him his own room this room is actually in my opinion better than the Captain's office because you're closer to all the other action on the ship and also you get a better window in my opinion and he has a bed a shower sink this is actually one of the Soaps that we still have from the ship only a month into her new career the ship had a bit of a misadventure which brings us to the next part of the ship a space amid ships on the sports deck just after the theater now known as the soda Bowl but in July 1941 this space was leased out to a Chicago based entertainment M company who were using the space as a casino there was actually 12 slot machines set up against this wall you see at the time there were strict gambling laws on both sides of the lake but the operator of both the Clipper and the casino itself were under the impression that about 5 miles out neither state had jurisdiction and the law simply couldn't be enforced later the authorities found out they came down to the ship and when they were coming down Captain hawy who was a captain of the time um got wind of their plan so he put on civilian clothes and he Blended in with the passengers but he told his crew to leave for Milwaukee and they did once they 5 mil out on the lake Captain hoxy went to the officers and said you're 5 miles out you don't have jurisdiction which is true but they went down to the ship to show telephone and called up Milwaukee they said we got the captain who's giving us a hard time and we found some gambling machines on the ship we need you to help us out so they got a squad down on the other side now with the Chicago police on board and the Milwaukee Police waiting for them at the dock hawkley had one more trick up his sleeve the crew actually tried throwing off all the slot machines to make it seem like there was nothing going on but the officers on board stopped that and the company and the captain were later find all charges were dropped mysteriously I might add but in 1942 they turned us into the soda Pole where you could get a nice snack sandwich um it was more of a um familyfriendly environment on the ship there were four women that worked in the soda Bowl that's the outfits that they would use on the ship the yellow one they also have the blue one the other one I believe is from the U ' 50s and the blue one is from the' 60s and one thing that people know is the blue one got shorter after the soda bowl is the Marine Lounge in the early days of the Clipper this space was open without a roof overhead and simply a canvas cover but in 1949 the solid roof was added to the enclosed space a 40x 25 ft Oak dance floor is at the center surrounded by tables along the outboard sides the room has a nautical theme with seahorses along the rope stanions and a woven rope cover on the pillars a ship's wheel Motif decorates the band stage and a rounded bar on the forward end was a stylish place for passengers to get cocktails playing on the Bandstand the ship had its own Orchestra for a portion of its career that band was known as George Kristen and his Milwaukee Clipper Orchestra they produced souvenir records for passengers and the Milwaukee Clipper museum has one of these vinyls they're fun covers of popular songs but due to copyright reasons I can't play them for you on the far aft end of the sports deck was the sports deck a space for passengers to play games like shuffle board have races or just simply Horse Around during the summer months the ship was popular with passengers often selling out but winter was its dead time the Coast Guard limited the ship's carrying capacity to 200 in the offseason because they considered that the life rafts were impractical during the colder months therefore the ship could only carry as many passengers as could fit in the full sized lifeboats to make up for the Lost passenger Revenue the ship was designed to also carry cars in addition to passengers passengers who wish to could drive their own cars aboard and keep them below but the main role of the ship's car compartment was to be carrying brand new cars out of Michigan across the lake to Milwaukee where they would be sold to car dealers for much of the ship's career she carried passengers in the summer and cars in the winter although most of the time she carried a little bit of both it was on November 7th 1947 that the Clipper was getting ready to depart one afternoon being the off season the ship was operating primarily as a car freighter so only a few people were on board the weather was rough and stormy when the ship set sail rough weather on the Great Lakes can't be underestimated the Great Lakes are more like Seas than lakes and can be nearly as unforgiving as the oceans themselves most other captains would have backed down from this weather but Captain hawy didn't the Clipper was underway riding through heavy waves and high winds when suddenly a large Rogue Wave struck her bow the man at the throttle who could feel the pulse of the ship's engines and propeller claims that the ship's screw was out of the water for at least 4 seconds the windows in the club Lounge were blown in and several of the adjacent State rooms were flooded came across and smashed these windows out and it also damaged two staterooms AF as Seas continued to break over the bow the crew needed to plug up holes where once were Windows they used mattresses from the staterooms and propped them up using Lounge Furniture fortunately the storm was subsiding and around this time the wav stopped breaking over the bow the Clipper made it to Milwaukee where steel plates were bolted over the broken windows as a temporary repair and on the outside windows right here you can see this is where they would have stuck those steel plates on to add protection in rougher Seas after 75 years the bolts remain they continued to use these bolts for metal window covers Whenever there was bad weather the Clipper continued its car carrying service throughout the winters so lucrative was the CAR contract and so high was the demand for moving these cars that the Wisconsin and Michigan steamship company bought an additional ship exclusively to carry these cars and boy did they go all in on this thing this was a surplus military ship left over from the second world war meant to carry troops tanks supplies and even Landing boats into battle this was LST 393 which the company renamed Highway 16 the ship served in both Sicily and Normandy during the war and would now sail alongside the Milwaukee Clipper carrying additional cars across the lake it was also intended to be used as the company's only car carrier when the Clipper was laid up for maintenance in the off season in 1953 The mcke Brothers attempted to expand their business by purchasing an old C4 freighter named The Marine Star as with the old Juniata they contracted George sharp to design a modern streamlined passenger Ferry on the bones of the Old Ship while the Clipper would remain the luxury way to travel with its capacity for just 900 passengers this new larger ship would be the budgeted way to go with a capacity of about 2500 but she would be anything but plain she was complete with six restaurants two dance halls and several lounges all in the art deco design just like the Clipper this new ship would be known as the Aquarama and work began on her right away 1953 also seems to have been the year for falling overboard around dusk on August 10th as the ship was in the middle of the lake a Man Overboard cry went up the ship's first mate Clarence van dongan launched a boat with a small rescue party as the Clipper search light combed the area an unconscious young lady was found floating face down and quickly and efficiently she was pulled aboard the rescue boat back aboard the Clipper she was resuscitated it was found out later that she didn't fall overboard she jumped the crew kept her underwat until she was admitted to the hospital in msan that same season Mark mcke co-owner of the vessel was sailing on board with his pet dog as the ship was getting underway the dog leapt overboard into the lake first mate van dongan once more took a boat out and managed to rescue the dog later the crew joked with him that the woman earlier in the season was the practice round for getting ready to save the boss's dog fortunately both were okay and first mate van dongan rose up the ladder and eventually took over as the ship's captain in 1954 throughout the rest of the 1950s it was mostly smooth sailing for her with a few incidents of note she lost her Rudder in one of her off Seasons she was painted to a green color scheme in 1957 in 1959 a seaman was found dead on board of natural causes it was in 1960 that one of her major accidents occurred she departed Milwaukee in a thick fog in the morning of May 28th with 465 Souls on board Souls of course referring to both passengers and crew she was now under the command of a captain prefer who had taken command of the ship at the start of the Season creeping along through the blanket of fog the Clipper was traveling at a cautious Pace visibility was non-existent and as it turns out the ship was slightly out of position the Milwaukee break water suddenly appeared in the distance and the ship just simply couldn't stop she rammed it head on although the damage was minimal 14 people were injured after having been thrown around by the sudden stopping the bow was dented in 3 in and she was out of service for 2 weeks requiring about 7,000 ,000 of repair in January 1961 the Clipper was serving in her offseason car faing duties when she and three other car fairies all became trapped in ice just beond the Milwaukee Breakwater this happened several more times throughout that winter and the following one and in 1962 it was announced that the Milwaukee Clipper would officially be a summer only ship retiring her from her winter car duties her Fleet mate the aqu quama which sailed the Detroit River was a financial failure despite being well-loved by its select passengers and this severely hurt the Clipper line the mcke brothers wanted to move the Aquarama to the Milwaukee and mosan route to replace the Clipper but she was too big to fit into the Milwaukee Harbor without dredging it which was a costly process that the city refused to pay for Aquarama was retired in 1963 but she would bounce around different layups for many more years years September 10th 1970 under the command of a captain Carl Reagan the Clipper made her final trip for the Wisconsin and Michigan steamship company the year was actually one of the most profitable ones for the ship but other factors were at play regular maintenance costs were rising and the ship needed expensive repairs while the Coast Guard was becoming more and more scrutinous of the Aging vessel additionally the mcke brothers were unhappy that Milwaukee refused to dredge their Harbor after all that the company had done for the city the American flag that flew from her Mast on this final voyage is still preserved in the onboard Museum below deck last time they round the engine was a 71 yep uh 71 September 17th 1971 at [Music] 11 the Clipper sat at her slip awaiting her fate for 7 years there were parties interested in purchasing her but they fell through others talked about scrapping her but this too never happened in 1977 she was sold to James Gillan who created the Illinois steamship company Mr Gillan was not seeking a business opportunity he was looking for a way to save the ship that he loved he had her towed from her slip in mosan to Wisconsin for a complete refurbishment with the plans to return her to Service as soon as possible POS but the cost of repairs and the time that they took were greater than expected the company fell into debt and the ship was seized by creditors so the ship sat for a few more years as Mr Gillan continued to work to rescue the ship while the creditors tried to find someone to buy her then the Maritime Museum of Port Washington Wisconsin had a clever idea to help all parties they proposed to accept the ship as a donation from the creditors who in turn could take a tax right off by donating it to a nonprofit and then they would appoint Mr Gillan as custodian of the ship that was a major win for everybody the ship was renamed simply the Clipper dropping Milwaukee from the name and towed down to Chicago where then mayor Jane burn allowed it to be docked at the Chicago Navy Pier free of charge there it would be fixed up and served as a floating Museum it was thanks to the efforts of James Gillan that the ship was saved at all which earned him the title of the ship's Guardian Angel major repairs were made and a bar was added to the club lounge and the main Lounge which we still see today as the ship sat in Chicago as a museum it was very much alive the restaurants all functioned the dance floor was Lively and passengers could still get drinks in the club Lounge in 1983 she became a national landmark sitting at the Navy Pier the ship had its own brand Landing in the lounges and restaurants such as these napkins and coasters which feature an art deco rendition of the ship and say aboard the SS Clipper a national landmark at the Navy Pier in Chicago the ship was turning AIT but slowly the main problem was that the Navy Pier at the time was closed to the public so any visitors to the Clipper needed a special escort when they walked through the pier to the ship that all changed when Chicago mayor Harold Washington opened the pier up to the public and visits to the ship boomed mayor Washington had a soft spot for the Clipper frequently hosting mayoral parties and press conferences aboard her and that's not all this room might not look like much um but at one point this is where the mayor of Chicago had an apartment really the mayor of um Chicago loved the Clipper loved it so much they actually asked for his own kind of office on the ship beside shroom so we got this kind of office that they used to use for the steward stewardesses on the ship and they turned it into the mayor all bedroom on the Clipper they had a bedroom and office on the ship many people don't know that in Chicago so we have history all over the Great Lakes while mayor Washington did so much to promote the ship the city didn't share the same enthusiasm mayor Washington died in office and that very same day an eviction notice was served to the Clipper another lawsuit ensued that lasted for years until ultimately the ship was seized and put up for auction the City of Hammond Indiana had just built a new Marina and instead of spending the excess money on a traditional Marina Clubhouse they used the money to purchase the Clipper and bring it to their Marina to act as that Clubhouse the ship was towed from Chicago to Hammond and dedicated in June 1991 after being given a new coat of paint and once more being named the Milwaukee clipper in this time intense efforts were made to bring the ship up to code and make it handicap accessible around this time too the pantry area behind the serving counter of the restaurant was remodeled to be a full kitchen rather than just a pantry relying on the Antiquated Galley below the ship turned a profit here but the longevity of the site was uncertain with further repairs being needed by the end of 1995 the ship was closed once more it was towed to a nearby COK and forgotten by everyone except for a small group of enthusiasts this small band of enthusiasts got together and created the Great Lakes Clipper preservation Association a nonprofit 501c3 with the goal of preserving the Milwaukee Clipper for generations to come the group secured a new birth for her in her old home of mosan the ship was towed up the lake by the tugboat John pervis departing shortly after midnight on December 2nd 19 97 as the ship approached Muskegan that afternoon throngs of people came out to watch her return an aircraft even flew out over the lake to greet her climbing up a ladder while still at Sea the Clipper returned to mosan under the command of her former Captain Captain Bob preer the ship was brought into the channel and maneuvered into her birth at the foot of McCracken street where the grand trunk railroad used to have a ferry it was a heart Waring sight for so many families in mosan many of whom credit the Clipper for helping to grow their City to what it's become and generating so much revenue for them when the ship was in service this pier has been her home since 1997 with a team of dedicated volunteers keeping her alive they've battled storms to keep her afloat they've looked after her diligently and kept the ship wellmaintained they fought the uphill battle of fundraising through the last couple of decades all while preserving her history and sharing it with the world when we stepped aboard we were taking a step back in time in coming aboard we can nearly relive the old Cross Lake Journeys this Old Ship used to take it's like a time capsule yeah you know someone compared to as to getting into the DeLorean and heading back you know in time because nothing has really changed with the ship there are some small things that we had to do you know to be up to code uh but a majority of the stuff is as it was you know you have the Pilot House here and the original paint scheme that it was back in the 1940s the Pilot House is where the Skippers of the Clipper commanded her across the Lakes from Captain hawy her first Captain after her rebirth to Captain prefer who at 101 years old still serves as the ship's honorary Captain this is where her Captain stood and the captain's chair here is where they sat most of the equipment are original pieces of equipment from the 1940s such as the helm and telegraphs with some exceptions being pieces that were added later in her career such as The Radars however another Unique Piece is the radio direction finder this piece is actually the original from 1904 installed on the Juniata so we have a 1 Dee 1 and 1/2 Dee starboard list the anchor the port side's down but the starboard side anchor up so call in a little bit of it it could be apparently this spatoon this isn't the original one to the ship the original one um took a little bit of a swim uh back in 1941 when the ship was starting the wheelsman were notorious for spitting their tobacco and missing and it was almost a game they would miss on purpose cuz they didn't have to clean it up um they had one of the Deans do it Captain Robert prer who started out as a Dean actually has a dishwasher made his way up to Captain and one of his jobs was to clean up the ground in the Pilot House he hated that job he could not stand it when he got a call from headquarters in 1960 telling him that he was the captain he was so excited but instead of celebrating calling up his mom or dad to tell him I got the job he went up to the Pilot House told the wheelsman if you're going to spit you're going to spin the bucket or you're not going to spin it all and he threw spatoon off the side of the ship but he made his point clear that if you're going to spit and Miss you're going to be off the ship yourself he feels the [Music] power after the Pilot House is the officer's quarters including the captain's cabin so we're in the captain's Office of the Milwaukee Clipper as as it is it's the captain's office and his bed probably the nicest accommodation on the ship he had his own bathroom he didn't have to share with anybody else he had the biggest bed as well on the ship but what's interesting about this room in the 1950s When They Carried brand new automobiles on the ship in the winter they would put them everywhere on the ship any space that they could cuz every extra car they got that was more change in the owner's pocket also more change in the captain's pocket because they would put cars everywhere they would even take them apart and put them in into other rooms You' have a motor here you'd have a door here you have a door here the captain did not want anything in his room and the joke was they would put a car everywhere but the captain's cabin cuz the door was too small when visitors board the ship today the first thing they enter is a museum space which features artifacts from the ship's career both as the Juniata and the [Music] Clipper a model Gallery is forward of there with interesting models of several ships from the Great Lakes including the infamous SS Eastland which sank in downtown Chicago in 1915 a subject that I've made an extensive documentary about on my channel another Gallery features artifact act from the Aquarama the former fleetmate of the Milwaukee Clipper the Aquarama hung around for decades after her final voyage in 1963 until she was finally scrapped in Turkey in 2007 the gift shop is also in this part of the ship where I got me some mugs as extensive as the museum collection is there are some historically significant pieces still missing we are still missing our Bell that was taken off in South Chicago it's a beautiful cast bronze Bell it says SS Juniata there are some items that have been taken off the ship if people have an item from the Clipper maybe you can bring it down to the Clipper and bring it back to its original home we got a chaturn back last year so we're piecing the ship back [Music] together back up on Deck the sun is starting to go down this is the Sund deck the landscape of which is dominated by the Clippers streamlined funnel but this isn't actually a funnel it's meant to give the impression of one to complement the ship's lines but it's entirely fake it houses a fan room and a generator space with a platform on the very top that we climbed up to on top of the fal deck there would actually be um a band that would play on nice days um while the people were dancing they would put a band up here it was really just a nice way to change things up from the Dance Floor move people upstairs of course I wouldn't really want to play up here and lug all the equipment up here wouldn't that be a fun to me can you imagine in rough conditions having to play up here as the ship is rocking back and forth and Brock you said earlier that they would clip like a like a harness or something into this clip into there if they did to that way they could still play I'm not going to lie that's kind of insane just stick the in the funnel they'll be fine yeah they they'll manage it yeah I guess the real band looked a bit cooler up here than us doing our air guitar and [Music] keyboard the ship's actual Smoke Stack is this tower on the AF end of the Sund deck of course we couldn't pass up the opportunity to climb up that as well the triple chime whistle that we see at the top of the funnel predates her conversion to the Milwaukee Clipper but doesn't date back all the way to the 1904 construction of the ship the whistle was added during one of her 1920s refits replacing her original single chime whistle so I'm up the Mast right now the AFT Mast kind of holding on here these ladder rungs are quite small I can't fit both feet on a single rung but we're pretty high up as the sun set it was time to switch on the ship's power for one final tour below before we say good night to her so it's getting a little late on board we're turning on the inverter which is going to turn on most of the exterior lights yeah well the inverter um it does um it Powers all the DC uh outlets and DC lights on the ship so lots of the exterior lights were DC um along with some of the interior lights still look at the shadow of where the needle has just always been and this one's been all over the place we've now seen most of the ship's passenger accommodations so now let's start going deeper below deck Beyond just the engine rooms which we saw earlier as we get lower into the ship we enter the old parts of the Juniata if parts of the ship are welded together it's from the Clipper if something is riveted we're looking at the old Juniata from 1904 so we're in the fuel tanks now this would have been the coal bunker at one point they would actually have to heat the uh fuel to get it on board cuz it was so thick it was like a tar so to get it actually moving they had to heat it up and then to get into the boilers they had to super heat it the uh the waste on the battleships when they would burn the oil this is the byproduct so this is running off of the byproduct of battleships correct they burned about 5,500 gallons of oil per round trip we descended further down into the lowest parts of the hull which in the Clipper era was one of her many card deck the cars were driven aboard the ship and loaded through the gangway doors to make it easier to load cars they cut through this bulkhead a decision we question the safety of seems like a weak point to me if you ever develop a leak or you hit something and you compromise this room this is a big bulk Ed of flood it's like the middle of the ship a thick layer of soot blankets the ceiling and graffiti written by fingers can still be seen with some interesting old messages how much lower does It Go um about 2 ft then you're at the Double bottom you just fall through water starts pouring in talking about H like oh the ship is so strong and you start flooding the one compartment that shouldn't be flood cuz it's cut open they're the original bed frames to the Juniata wow in one of the forward most compartments on the portch side are additional accommodations for seasonal crew these were mostly Steward and weight staff there were bunk rooms and a bathroom in this small section of the vessel from there we move forward into the four Peak if you look at these beams up here you can still kind of see how they're bent from when the ship hit the break water in the' 60s okay ready to head down for the last room oh we're going down okay going down not too many bad like Rusty spots on this ship though no the lowest part of the four Peak tank is actually flooded but the walls showed signs of an even deeper Flooding at one point can I can I go down there if you want to I I want to you can dude I I'm I'm doing it there's no like I don't know like log Nest monster down there is there I'm going down it's the lowest level of the four Peak right now and in order to even out the keel if you're looking at the ship's profile they've flooded 3 ft of water down here and the idea of going into a flooded compartment seems a little too exciting to pass up this hatch they always keep open so there's no buildup of fumes down here it's been ventilating since they flooded it but I'm still not going to stay in here too long it is muggy down here mgy yeah like like humid oh mugy okay it's H musty in there and the rungs of the ladder were Rusty there's burned wood down here guys there's a flashlight down here an old one in the water do you see that isn't that a chalk marker a water like water level indicator where to your left uh farther back um that yeah the white level no that's a pen it's a pen that's a pen that's floating Ah that's my pen back out of the flooded compartment we moved aft into the far stern of the ship and explored some of the steering gear and other Cruise spaces we're going to go check out the generator room now the generator room is just above the engine room and a little bit forward we're actually kind of overlooking it like a balcony so you just you don't touch these anymore huh no really the old Juniata the Milwaukee Clipper or just the Clipper has finally made her home here in mosan but there are hopes to move her to a more downtown location where visitors will have better access to her right now her main issue is that people simply don't know that she's there we had to go to the western part of town and follow signs into what looks like a restricted area and is locked behind a gate this gate is opened during visiting hours the clipper can be visited during the summer months on the western end of mosan as she sits right next to the lake Express high-speed Ferry reminiscent of the ship's old fering days sailing the same rout as the Clipper but doing so in a fraction of the time the dock where the Clipper sailed in and out of in downtown mosan is now home to another museum ship the World War II LST 393 yes this is the Old Highway 16 that was owned by the same company which has since been restored to her original World War II LST configuration if they were able to move the Milwaukee Clipper to some sort of nearby moing it would help to tell the story of when these ships worked together and it would ensure the Clipper's longevity by giving it Greater exposure and easier access to the public the Milwaukee Clipper is a reminder of a lost era of Great Lake travel and an art deco time capsule she's one of three National Historic Landmark ships designed by the famous Naval architect George sharp the other two being the NS Savannah in Baltimore and the Victory ship SS Lane victory in San Pedro California of which I'm technically a crewman of the Clipper is kept Alive by donations and volunteer efforts in the past year they've successfully executed a vast array of projects spanning from intricate painting to comprehensive plumbing and electrical work their dedicated team of volunteers has triumphantly achieved numerous Milestones remarkably in 2023 alone they logged over 4,000 volunteer hours on board they envisioned the Clipper as the focal point of mosan their long-term Vision includes establishing a waterfront Haven complete with a botel if you will or a hotel on board a restaurant bar and a Banquet Center redefining mosan Waterfront experience while you might not be able to volunteer you can help out significantly by donating to the Clipper every dollar goes to one of their many onboard projects to keep the ship around for generations to come government does not want to help us out at all unlike the other ships in the area we rely solely on private donations which is very sad I mean we we manage but we can't do nearly enough projects that we want to do on board the ship for more information visit Milwaukee clipper.eu [Music] Clipper and it's all using official Lego parts that have been curated by hand and the proceeds of it are being donated to preserving the Milwaukee Clipper this kit is available at hisob brick.com I want to thank the Milwaukee Clipper preservation Association and the volunteer crew of the Milwaukee Clipper for inviting us out hosting us and giving us such a phenomenal tour of their wonderful vessel Raymond Hilt Brock Johnson and Barrett West for being such a wealth of knowledge while writing this video and the writers of the book SS Milwaukee Clipper an illustrated history for creating such a good resource if you enjoyed this video don't forget to subscribe and also consider joining my YouTube channel memberships or my patreon at the link in the description below a special thank you to my supporters especially Marlo Perez Kelly black Kaiser vilhelm II Kaiser Friedrich theii Zack Richards Donald Anderson Cody Henrik Joan Haynes sha Kimble Glenn biscom Steven schwankert Gabriel colom Nick K RGB Tara molar Keith Holland miles Garrett Jennifer Rob M Amos Mayhew Corey Andrews Nicholas Mella Cole tanic Sophie babber Rob Oliver chinchan John mooki David with tipka Tiffany ridan man time media Nathan Gutierrez Max metf David Little John Shan sah Fraser Nikki Chan 92 Corbin McDonald Matthew Burns Goblin of the salt Plains Luke Stevens Gordon Robbins Aaron Stark Troy Wentworth and clarky
