Railroad and Vehicle Ferry Slips at St. Ignace, MI

(for satellite information, see below)

Chiefwawatam.com
Doug Taylor shared the above link
This railroad car ferry served 3 different railroads to get their cars across the Straits of Mackinac from 1911 to 1984. I now own one of the 3 engines that was on it. This website is all about her and the fight I put up with the city council of St. Ignace, Mi. to save her from being scraped.

 

Mark Andersen posted
Soo Line 503A and LS&I 2302 are switching the Chief in St. Ignace on 3-1-78. Neil Plagens photo.

Mick Enright: A Soo F-Unit, an LS&I U23C and the Chief Wawatam all in the same frame…what a catch! Not to be repeated in a million years!

Mark Jorgensen: Was that pool power? Soo line tracks?

Steve Horton: I believe that the Soo used to seasonally lease LS&I power during winters when LS&I didn't run much. And yes, the Soo Line (previously DSS&A) served St. Ignace.

Holly Suerwier: I loved the Chief. She was beautiful, inside and out. Teak wood in her pilot house and her gorgeous boilers.

Per a comment, these ferry docks were used by the vehicle ferries that ran to Mackinaw City, MI, before the Mackinac Bridge was built. 

Satellite

According to this topo map, the railroad docks were further north. 

1964 St Ignace Quad @ 24,000

Satellite

The dock that is the base of today's marina was Dock 2 for vehicle ferries. [Description on Les' post below]

EarthExplorer: May 20, 1954 @ 17,000; AR1WE0000170152

A 1953 aerial is the oldest I could find.

EarthExplorer: Jun 2, 1953 @ 60,000; ARA001080172095

safe_image for Dan Mackey Flickr
The old DSS&A/Soo Line railcar ferry dock in St. Ignace. this was taken just a few days before it collapsed back in 2011.

 

MightyMac.org - The Mackinac Bridge & Straits of Mackinac posted
The postcard shows ferry boats in St. Ignace in the early 1900s.
Steve Lindau: Hand colored. Someone did a nice job coloring the water and waves, they look quite realistic.
Glenn Merriam: I remember the Chief Wawatam rail ferry. They put her in use as a car ferry in very busy times. The traffic was backed up for miles on holiday weekends.

Dave Cell posted
Soo Line car ferry facility, Michigan, exact location not known, but somewhere in the Upper Peninsula between Trout Lake and the Soo. St. Ignace? Mid-1970s. Excuse the poor quality, scan from a faded old drugstore print. Never before published.
Aaron Culloty: St Ignace. Mackinac Island is in the background.

 

Chuck Schwesinger Flickr

Unloading the Chief

Making the first pull off the Chief Wawatam on September 10, 1981 is SOO 4414 and 4427 at St. Ignace. If the boat was fully loaded the units and train would end up blocking State Street(the main street of St. Ignace) so the crews would normally take a couple cuts off the boat and pull over State street and shove back into the lakefront yard and then return for the last two cuts off the boat.

 

Robert Campbell posted
The Soo Line unloading the rail ferry Chief Wawatam at St. Ignace in February 1977.
Mark Hershoren shared

Mike Harlan shared.

Dennis DeBruler That third photo also has a lot of "misc history."
I count at least three horse&buggies because cars haven't happened yet.
Shutter speeds are slower because the three ladies on the right, who seem to be in a hurry, are a blur.
The handbrake wheel on the boxcar is at the top.

The first photo below shows that cargo was still shipped in barrels.[Note that the Western States, which appears to be a passenger and cargo ferry, is coming into a different dock.]

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Rahn Stokes posted
Railroad Car Ferry Chief Wawatam was built in 1911 for service at the Straits of Mackinaw between Michigan's two peninsulas. An excellent ice breaker it was loaned to the State of Michigan many times to break ice all the way up to Whitefish Bay. In 1946 the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw arrived to help break ice, so the Chief and the other Railroad Car Ferry St. Marie II were not used as much. These two ferries were owned by the Mackinaw Transportation Company, which was owed by the DSS&A, MC, and GR&I railroads.

Greg Bunce posted
The Chief Wawatam at St. Ignace, June 1977.
Steve Horton: In basic black, that she wore for many years. Sometime in the 1980's they brought back the white stripe on the hull (at the main deck's window level, and the white (or were they silver?) stripes on the stacks.
Greg Bunce shared

 

Greg Bunce commented on Steve's comment
Steve Horton tied up at Mackinaw City, September 14, 1986.

Robert Campbell posted
The 1911 built Chief Wawatam is shown as she leaves the St.Ignace dock for the trip across the Straits to Mackinaw City in March 1979

Robert Campbell posted
The 1911 built railroad ferry Chief Wawatam is shown as she approaches the St. Ignace dock on a winters day in 1978.
Richard Gebhart: Appears she reached the dock, Robert. Cool pic; unusual to see the Chief photographed without coal smoke.
Les Bagley: Robert Campbell If she was only making one trip a week, the firemen would have already banked the fires as she was approaching the dock, so as not to use anymore coal than needed for the crossing. The boilers would still be hot enough to provide sufficient steam for landing maneuvers, and probably only one would be then kept just warm enough for use of heat radiators, winches, generators and other auxiliaries through the week. The others would only be fired minimally so they wouldn’t have to be completely relit each week, which could be a rather lengthy process.
Les Bagley: Richard Gebhart she was designed by probably the most famous Great Lakes Marine Architect, Frank E. Kirby, who designed all the company’s other rail ferries too. He also designed the excursion steamer Tashmoo, the Bob-Lo boats Columbia and St. Clair, and almost all the D&C overnight steamers including City of Detroit III, just to mention a few. In this view the Chief is still entering her slip, as we can clearly see her bow, which is not yet obstructed by the slip’s wings or apron.
Brian R. Wroblewski: She was the last hand bomber on the lakes but does anyone know which was the last hand fired freighter?
John Hill

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1238162

[An engine of this ferry has been preserved in the Manitowoc maritime museum.]

Dennis DeBruler shared
The old steam powered railroad car ferries used to run year round so they were very effective at breaking ice.
Craig Cloud: I read article on ferry, still hand fired until retired, correct?
Dennis DeBruler: According to some comments on the post, this one got a stoker in 1965. But another one was hand fired until it was laid up for good in 1974.

Robert Campbell posted
The Chief Wawatam as seen from the shore near St. Ignace as she plows her way through the ice toward Mackinaw City in February 1977.
[Michigan railroads no longer go to St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, let alone cross the strait.]

Mark Anderson posted
Soo Line switching the Chief In St. Ignace on 4-7-81. Neil Plagens photo.
Michael Fochtman: One time my friend Terry and I went on a trip to Mackinac City to watch them load the Chief. Then raced across the bridge to St. Ignace ahead of it to watch them unload again.
I was amazed how the ship would lean to one side as they loaded a string of cars down one side, then the train would pull out a bit, they would switch the tracks and it the train would push some more cars in on the other side and the ship would right itself and then lean the other. Quite a skill I'm sure, with rail cars having different weights and all.
Matt Woods: The Chief is the greatest railroad ferry. My dad rode in it before the bridge was built and they would use it for autos during busy times.

Is this in this town or Mackinaw City? Nether town has a dock that matches this photo.

Lilac McFarland posted
This photograph of the Mackinaw Straits Ferry, which shuttled people back and forth between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, was taken in 1950. This is how it was before the Mackinac bridge opened on November 1, 1957 and ended decades of the two peninsulas being solely linked by ferries. A year later, the bridge was formally dedicated as the "world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages.
Photo courtesy of Pete Ridlon.
Michigan Memories posted
Mackinac Straits Ferry in 1950

A day later I came across this post which shows this dock was in St. Ignace. So the above photo was taken in this town. 

Les Bagley posted three images with the comment:

For years I’ve been studying the history of Michigan State Ferries, the boats that connected Michigan’s peninsulas before the Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957.  But I’ve encountered a mystery!

Between 1939 and 1951, the ferries landed at “Dock 2” in St. Ignace. Formerly the city’s coal dock, early photos (mostly from post cards) clearly show a water gap between the dock’s loading and unloading lanes. (Views 1 & 2). The colorized card is apparently quite early, and leaves out a lot of details like lamp posts, if any.  The B&W view was postmarked in August, 1942. 

View 3 is a more modern image of the same dock, believed to date from around 1950.  It shows that the gap between lanes was, at some point, covered over.  But the mystery is when was this done?  In all my research, I’ve found nothing about that additional Dock construction. 

Some background:  Dock 2 was built in 1939 to accommodate the state’s growing fleet of former rail ferries that loaded from their sterns. Prior to that, all the earlier ferries loaded from side ports at Dock 1, just to the north. In 1951 ferry service moved to a much larger Dock 3, built 10 minutes closer to Mackinac City to speed traffic flow, and to accommodate the huge ferry Vacationland which entered service in 1952.

After the Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957 the ferry service ended.  Dock 1 is now used by Starline ferries to Mackinac Island.  Dock 2 became the St. Ignace city marina, and Dock 3  was divided into a Coast Guard station, landings for the Arnold Freight Company, and a State Highway garage.

Les Bagley shared

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Steve Horton posted two images with the comment: "About a month ago, someone on this page asked how the DSS&A/Soo tracks exited St. Ignace.  Tonight I ran across this photo showing the west (compass north) end of the St. Ignace yard.  Taken April 1978, photographer unknown. (I downloaded from some online source in 2006). The track layout is something I photocopied years ago."

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[Chief Wawatam is in town.]

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Dan Cary commented on Steve's post
Someone gave me a track chart of the lower side ... yeah!

Dan Cary commented on Steve's post

According to the 2005 SPV Map, the Soo Line entered town on the north side and that route is now the St Ignace to Trout Lake Trail and the Ojibway Trail. Unfortunately, the oldest Historic Aerial is 1994. Since the tracks were long gone by then, I could not trace the right-of-way through town to find the ferry slip.

Fortunately, this Bill Johnson Flickr 1979 Photo provides the address of the depot and dock as 4428 St Ignace, MI. That photo also shows that the Chief Wawatam ferry was a steamer because a lot of black smoke is pouring out of its two smokestacks.

A Bill Johnson Flickr 1979 Photo shows a cut of cars being shoved onto Chief Wawatam by a Soo engine. In the background is an older Laker (because the bridge is on the bow) that clearly has a self-unloading conveyor boom.

Chief Wawatam ran between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City. There is more information on the Chief in "Rail Ferry Operations in Mackinaw City."

David Mc Neil posted three photos with the comment: "The Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company's City of Mackinac at dock, St. Ignace, Michigan. 1906"