_{The Chippewa arriving at Anacortes, August 1953. Author’s collection.}

BUILT/REBUILT: 1900/1926/1932, Toledo, OH and Houghton, WA.

OFFICIAL NUMBER: 127440 CALL SIGN: WA3651

L/D/B: 212 x 53 x 16    GROSS/NET TONS: 887/603 PASSENGERS/AUTOS: 950/52 cars

PROPULSION: (1900) twin triple-expansion steam; (1932) Busch-Sulzer diesel, direct drive SPEED: 15 knots (diesel)

NAME TRANSLATION: another name for Ojibwa, a North American Indian people native to the region around Lake Superior. Ojibwa probably means ‘puckered,’ which was likely a reference to the tribes’ style of moccasins.

FINAL DISPOSITION: Gutted by fire, 28 June 1968. Hull finally cleared away in the 1980s with the sale of the Collinsville Fishing Resort.

HISTORY

Few vessels on Puget Sound led as interesting a life as the well-loved Chippewa.

Built in 1900 in Toledo, Ohio, she was used as a passenger vessel of the Arnold Transportation System on the Great Lakes. She was powered with twin triple expansion steam engines fed by four oil-fired water tube boilers.

The steamer was purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Company (Black Ball Line) in 1907. Having made her way to the east coast, she left New Jersey on 18 February 1907.  Sailing around the Strait of Magellan (there was no Panama Canal at that time) she arrived 80 days later on 8 May 1907, on what had not been exactly a pleasant trip.  Problems had included loss of power, fire, and a disgruntled crew.  After clean-up and repainting, the steamer started service on the Seattle-Victoria, British Columbia run, which she held onto until 1911 when she was replaced by the Indianapolis, another former Great Lakes steamer. The Chippewa then took over the Seattle-Tacoma route until the outbreak of World War I. During the war years, she was used as a school ship for the merchant marine. After the war, the Chippewa sat unused on Lake Union. Steamers were becoming extinct on Puget Sound. Many of the old wooden “Mosquito Fleet” passenger steamers were being scrapped or converted to carry automobiles.

In 1926 Black Ball invested heavily in the Chippewa. The steamer underwent major refurbishment at the Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton. Her bow and stern cut off and her interior was extensively modified.

The lower deck was cleared out and could now accommodate 90 cars.  Her passenger capacity was rated at 2,000.  Relisted as the flag ship of the line, the then-largest ferry on the West Coast went into service mainly between Seattle and Bremerton on the “Navy Yard Route.”

For a number of years, the Chippewa was used successfully in this configuration.  However, her triple expansion steam engines, which had been left in place in the 1926 rebuild, were starting to become troublesome. In 1932 PSN decided to pull the ailing steam engines out and repower the vessel with a direct drive Busch-Sulzer diesel. The rebuilding caused a loss of carrying capacity, down to 75 cars, but a gain of speed to a respectable 16 knots.

The Chippewa would emerge from the yard this time with over $200,000 (1932 dollars; translates to roughly, $3,671,600 in 2015) in alterations in addition to her new engine.

Changes to the passenger cabin, which was completely rebuilt, included a glassed-in main observation deck on the forward part of the vessel. The cabin was paneled in Philippine mahogany, with long padded bench seats padded in red leather.  Her galley, located amidships, was redesigned and included a gift shop.  The long square counter was ringed by padded stools, where passengers could expect to get a full-service meal.

Both a   men’s smoking room and a ladies’ lounge were included, adding a touch of North Atlantic elegance to the Puget Sound ferry. The final rebuilding gave her a more modern look, a completely new wheelhouse.  The line of square windows along her car deck were replaced with portholes.   One stack was removed, replaced with a shorter, more rounded funnel.

The Chippewa continued as the flag ship of the fleet. She remained mainly on the Seattle-Bremerton run throughout the 1920’s and into the 30’s, preceding the Kalakala in moonlight cruises and live music being broadcast from her forward observation room.  She was, however, deposed in 1935 from flagship status after the Kalakala arrived.

While the Kalakala would later gain a reputation for disliking ferry slips and barges, the Chippewa actually logged more accidents as a ferry than the Kalakala ever did.     It is important to remember, though, that radar wasn’t available until after World War II.   Navigation through fog was done by

reducing speed, keeping a sharp look out, and sounding the ferry’s whistle. This usually proved to work well so as not to collide with another vessel; it did not, however, prevent the vessel from going aground more than once.

After WWII, the Chippewa moved from her usual Bremerton-Seattle route to the San Juan Islands in the summer. In 1950, after a summer spent in the San Juans, the ferry was assigned to the Winslow-Seattle route. Traffic on the run had picked up significantly since the opening of the new Agate Pass Bridge, which connected Bainbridge Island with the mainland.  She stayed on the run, now under Washington State Ferry management, until 1953. She then went to work back up in the San Juans until 1956, at which time she was assigned back to the Bremerton route.

Her days working for WSF were coming to an end.  The Chippewa spent the summers from 1960-63 in the San Juans, often doing the Anacortes-Sidney B.C. route, then back on the Bremerton route for the fall season.  She was placed on “reserve” for 1964, and made her last run on 19 September 1964.  Subsequent drydocking and inspection revealed 28 unacceptable faults in her hull and superstructure, to the tune of some $400,000.00 to repair.  Given her limited clearance, and car capacity (down to 52 of the 1950’s sized cars) WSF decided against retaining the ferry. She was sold in 1965 to Foss Launch and Tug. After spending three years on Lake Union unused, she was sold to Donald Clair of Oakland, to be used as a museum and shopping mall in the Bay area.

Unfortunately, the new life for the Chippewa was not to be. While undergoing conversion, the ferry was set on fire on the night of 28 June 1968 while tied to the Oakland pier. She was completely gutted. She was moved to Stockton, moored at Paradise Point fishing resort.  She was stripped down to the hull in 1970 to be rebuilt as a replica of the luxury ferryboat Chrysopolis.  The plans never came through, and the hull was last reported as half-sunk at Collinsville, California, in the 1970’s; another report has her listed as a stationary sewage treatment plant on the Sacramento River.

The Collinsville Fishing Resort was bought out in the 1980’s, and the entire site cleared out.  It seems likely that the hull of the Chippewa met her demise at that time.