1929 Great Lakes freighter ‘Calumet’ soon to be cut up for scrap
December 26, 07 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Jim Nichols | Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer
For many of its 78 years, the 603-foot Calumet hauled iron ore for the steel that girded the United States’ prosperity. It helped make the steel of the World War II victory effort, the steel of Buicks and bridges, and the steel bones of the nation’s great skyscrapers.
In this windswept International Marine Salvage yard at the southern end of the Welland Canal, the Calumet will complete the cycle of its life.
The worn-out boat, owned by Avon Lake-based Grand River Navigation Co., was due for retirement late this winter, but the end came prematurely last month. On one of its 50 or so annual visits to Cleveland, the boat cracked into a concrete wall at the Cuyahoga River’s mouth last month and split a side.
Soon, [Wayne] Elliott’s sons and hired hands will attack the bulkheads, decks and hull with cutting torches, reducing the ship to recyclable rubble - 2-by-4-foot plates that can fit into the charge box of a steel mill’s blast furnace.
