Boatnerd Discussion Forum

What be the disposition of the vessel today? Was it scraped or eventually restored?

Of little significance, but today's history page states "[t]he 71-foot tug and patrol boat CARTER H. HARRISON was launched at Chicago, Illinois, for the City of Chicago Police Department." The vessel was launched from slip A, near the Illinois Central elevators on the south bank of the Chicago River near its mouth, for Captain James Rolson, also its builder, but not for the police department. Rolson, connected to Chicago politics, secured a contract from the city to serve the city's new water crib, "coincidentally" named for Mayor Carter H. Harrison. Rolson maintained ownership of Harrison until his death in 1933, and operated the vessel under city contract until 1929 when Rolson bought Great Lakes Towing Company's Kenosha for the city contract, which Rolson lost in 1932. Harrison, abandoned after Rolson passed, sat on the North Branch above Division in a steadily decaying state about a mile east of Rolson's (very nice) home on North Kedzie, facing Humboldt Park, for almost a decade until removed by the city in 1944. Rolson also ran the Harrison in the lakefront excursion trade.