it was interesting to see several vessels in your grouping with centered pilot houses and made me curious. Was there a benefit to positioning them there, or was it a short-lived trend in Great Lakes shipping?
I assume you mean pilothouses centered close to amidships. Each of the vessels shown with this configuration were originally intended for saltwater service. The
Saginaw was a war emergency "laker" built for the United States Shipping Board as
Coperas at Manitowoc in 1919, completed after the war, obviously. The
Imperial Midland was originally in the South American oil trade as the
Talalarite for a subsidiary of Imperial Oil, named for the city in Peru, Talara. The
Captain C. D. Secord had been built as a typical ore carrier of the day as the
Charles R. Van Hise in 1900 for the Bessemmer Steamship Company at Superior. It was requisitioned by the government to be sent to saltwater during World War I. It underwent extensive modification at Buffalo prior to being cut in two and brought (on its side because its beam was too wide) through the canals but with the cessation of hostilities it never made the complete trip. It was put back together but retained the basic design that had been followed during its rebuilding, with the pilothouse where you see it. Ocean vessels typically had superstructure set back from the bow to protect it from oncoming seas.