Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Thanks for the detailed response. Although the Pioneer only operated for one season with Cleveland Cliffs, I was fortunate enough to have seen it pass by on the St. Clair River after having just moved to St. Clair, Michigan, in 1979. Even though I was somewhat unfamiliar with shipping on the Great Lakes at that time, it was unique to see a Cleveland Cliffs vessel with a brown hull with only the Cleveland Cliffs stack markings to indicate the fleet the Pioneer was operating for. Once again, thank you for the information!

The C.H. McCullough, Jr. operated in the grain trade in 1974 and was laidup at Milwaukee. In early 1978, the McCullough was taken to AmShip South Chicago for survey and inspection and it was decided that the vessel wasn't worth the expense for repairs and conversion. At the same time, Bethlehem Steel was looking to dispose of both the Steelton and Lehigh which where rendered surplus to the fleet after the Lewis Wilson Foy entered service in June of that year. The asking price was $1 million for each vessel and Medusa Cement decided to purchase the Steelton, and renamed it Hull No. 3.

Over the Winter of 1979, it was planned by Medusa Cement to convert the Hull No.3 (ex. Steelton) into not just a cement carrier, but also install a self-unloading boom and bucket elevators so she could also carry stone and coal. The proposed conversion cost was $13 million. It seems there were a couple of plans for Hull No. 3 and it was eventually decided to have the vessel converted into a stationary cement storage facility at Sturgeon Bay over the Winter of 1982.

In 1979 due to strong demand for iron ore, Hull No. 3 was charted to Cleveland Cliffs, renamed Pioneer and put into the ore trade. It had been planned to operated the Pioneer in 1980 for Wisconsin Steel, but after a bitter labour dispute, Wisconsin Steel shutdown in March 1980, and Pioneer never operated in 1980.

Some links of interest: https://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatla ... sp?ID=s003

https://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatla ... sp?ID=s004

Medusa Cement purchased the C. H. McCullough Jr. from the Interlake Steamship Company in 1970 for conversion into a cement carrier. I seem to recall that Medusa either put this ship into service carrying iron ore or chartered it out for such. I have read somewhere that Medusa found this ship unsuitable for conversion to a cement carrier in a manner similar as it had done with the Medusa Challenger and subsequently sold it for scrap in 1980 following its acquisition of Bethlehem Steel's Maritimer Steelton. Does anyone know what was the particular problem with the McCullough, Jr. that prevented Medusa from going ahead with the conversion? Was there only sufficient volumes of demand to keep the Medusa Challenger in service with no need for further carrying capacity? Or were problems uncovered during the vessel's use in carrying outside bulk cargoes that influenced Medusa to back away from the conversion plans?

I don't know if Medusa purchased the Steelton for conversion into an operating carrier, as it would seem that a Maritimer class steamer may have been a little too large for many of the docks serviced by the company not to mention the possible lack of suitable demand during the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. I would imagine that if Medusa envisioned using the Steelton (Hull #3, later Pioneer) as a powered cement carrier, it would have required a shortening reconstruction similar to the Leon Fraser conversion into the Alpena. In the end, the Pioneer was rebuilt as a self-unloading cement transfer hull and renamed CTC No.1 during the early 1980s.