EM Young

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Re: EM Young

Unread post by Guest »

I have uploaded images of the news article I mentioned in an earlier post.
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William Lafferty
Posts: 1491
Joined: March 13, 2010, 10:51 am

Re: EM Young

Unread post by William Lafferty »

When the self unloading gear was removed from the E M Young in 1953, how did shoreside unloading equipment get around the ridges, slopes and gates in the bottom of the hold...or was everything reconfigured?
The Young had a scraper installation, which necessitated just removing the scraper tunnels, scrapers, A frame, and boom. It went from 16 hatches to 17 and seven compartments to three. Its capacity increased by 1000 tons. Its boom, sitting at Ashtabula, went to the Marquis Roen in 1956 while the Young, renamed Sparkman D. Foster in February 1954, inherited in the winter of 1955-56 the pilothouse, hatch covers, hatch crane, and hatch coamings of the ill-fated B. F. Jones, then being broken up at Superior.
Jon Paul

Re: EM Young

Unread post by Jon Paul »

When the self unloading gear was removed from the E M Young in 1953, how did shoreside unloading equipment get around the ridges, slopes and gates in the bottom of the hold...or was everything reconfigured?
William Lafferty
Posts: 1491
Joined: March 13, 2010, 10:51 am

Re: EM Young

Unread post by William Lafferty »

It also states the company had secured the services of the steamer E. M. Young for the upcoming 1929 season and that the company's primary customers were in the Chicago and Detroit markets.
Dolomite, Inc., was headquartered at Cleveland and operated a large limestone quarry at Maple Grove, Ohio. Its primary markets were from Detroit to Buffalo, especially the independent steel industry. In 1927 it acquired the L. D. Smith Stone Company (renamed the Sturgeon Bay Company) to augment that plant's production. Vessel passages in the Detroit Free Press and Port Huron Times 1928-1930 show that the cities most frequented by the E. A. Yong were Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. There was little market for Door County limestone in Chicago since much stone was brought in by the steel mills' proprietary quarries (United States Steel and later Inland) and from Rockport and Alpena, while the city's construction needs were more than met by Cook County's own mammoth limestone quarries, most operated by Material Service Corporation. The Electro Motive plant I worked at summers near La Grange was (and is) surrounded by three giant quarries, one just to the west at East Avenue and a gigantic quarry off 55th Street (which the Tollway passes over), still very much in operation. There was a market for "harbor stone" (rip rap, etc.) at Chicago then as its lakefront was expanded and reconstructed that came from primarily Door County.
Does anyone know how long stone was shipped from Sturgeon Bay and where this facility was located?
Stone had been quarried and shipped from Sturgeon Bay since at least 1834. As for this particular quarry: Thomas Smith and John Leathem purchased a tract of land about five miles north of downtown Sturgeon Bay in 1893 for the production of rip rap and crib stone for harbor work, adding to their already diverse local investments in wrecking, towing, ice production, lumbering, retail sales, and other pursuits. As the lumber played out the quarry became more important, and in 1905 Smith installed a crushing plant to produce stone for construction and macadamizing roads that he operated intermittently between then and 1911 when his son Leathem, a recent graduate in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin, bought a half-interest in his father's enterprises with money he made salvaging the steam barge Panther. As a civil engineer Smith realized the increasing importance of crushed limestone in road building and construction, and the Thomas A. Smith Stone Company under his direction flourished, leading to a huge expansion undertaken by Stephens-Adamson in 1913 creating a state-of-the-art stone quarrying and crushing plant on Sturgeon Bay which was again modernized in 1922. Wishing to focus on shipbuilding and promoting his self-unloader patents, Smith sold the L. D. Smith Stone Company to Cleveland's Dolomite, Inc., in 1927 (see above). Dolomite expanded and modernized the plant yet again, just in time for the Depression, and defaulted on payments to Smith and other former shareholders of the L. D. Smith Stone Company in 1930 and 1931, leading to a bevy of lawsuits in early 1932 including a lawsuit against Smith over taxes on his stock sale. These were resolved by 1934 and the plant, a moribund operation by then, continued to operate at a drastically reduced output. In 1944 the quarry closed, all the plant's machinery moved to Drummond Island where a new quarry was to begin operation to aid the war effort, supplying a purer grade of limestone for the recently completed Dow Chemical magnesium plant at Ludington.
BigRiver
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Re: EM Young

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Tomlinson Fleet colors. Worden Collection/MHSD
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Re: EM Young

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I don't know if this helps or not, but I did find some information in my files of a news report in the March 22, 1929 Door County Advocate newspaper of Sturgeon Bay reporting the construction of a new dock incorporation a ship loader built by Stephens-Adamson at the Sturgeon Bay Company quarry. In the article it describes how the company planned to significantly increase its shipments during the 1929 season. It also states the company had secured the services of the steamer E. M. Young for the upcoming 1929 season and that the company's primary customers were in the Chicago and Detroit markets. I assuming the Depression had a negative impact on these shipments. I have to leave this evening so, when I return home early next week I will try to post the article images. Does anyone know how long stone was shipped from Sturgeon Bay and where this facility was located?
William Lafferty
Posts: 1491
Joined: March 13, 2010, 10:51 am

Re: EM Young

Unread post by William Lafferty »

Greenwood claims a "floating contract" with the Lehigh Portland Cement Company, the vessel being named for its then-president. Lehigh Portland Cement had, I think, waterfront stone receiving facilities at Buffalo and Cleveland, while Goose Island at the time of the vessel's conversion had no stone receiving docks and only for coal the two docks of the Hedstrom Coal Company, the largest of which was limited to vessels 350 feet in length, and the Consumers Company, a dock 440 feet in length. The remainder of Goose Island was occupied by the proprietary docks of Construction Materials Company and Material Service Corporation that brought in their own material, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, Morton Salt Company, Hettler Lumber Company, and an Erie Raillroad carfloat slip. In 1928 the Young, at 504 feet, was he largest self-unloader conversion to date. There were plenty of smaller self-unloaders that could far more easily service Goose Island so far up the North Branch if it, indeed, needed such service. Tomlinson already had one, the Sinaloa, and would have two more, the Sierra and Sumatra, within a year of the Young's conversion. The Young's distinctive profile was a function of its length. Since scrapers could not travel nearly as fast as belts, it was decided to have four 8-yard scrapers feeding to a cross-fed hopper and a 96-inch pan conveyor approximately amidships. This gave the vessel a decent unloading rate of 2000 tons per hour. The 150-foot boom (some sources say 160 feet) was positioned as it was because the A-frame was around 120 feet from the afterhouse but 172-feet from the pilothouse, for whatever reason, allowing for an appreciably longer boom.
NMGL

EM Young

Unread post by NMGL »

One of our volunteers is seeking information on the EM Young. The boat was fitted with a self unloading boom in 1928. Our volunteer heard a story that the boom was specifically designed to discharge cargo at Goose Island in Chicago. Greenwood offers only that the boat had a "floating" contract" but not other information.

Any help that can be given as to the accuracy of the above would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone knows what the boat would have delivered to Goose Island would help as well.

Thanks
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