Hatchet Job: The Conversion of the S.S. Indianapolis

Indianapolis, the smallest of the three Great Lakes steamers was the first to arrive on Puget Sound, arriving at Port Townsend 10 February 1906. She has been fitted with temporary sails to assist her trip via the Strait of Magellan, as there was no Panama Canal to utilize.

The Puget Sound Navigation Company, owner of the steamer, put her on the Seattle-Port Townsend-Victioria run, but with the arrival of her larger near sisters, the Indianapolis settled into the Tacoma-Seattle route sailing with the company’s Tacoma which arrived in 1913.

Looking to improve the service on the Tacoma-Seattle run, and to pair the Tacoma (which could easily do 20 knots plus and was the fastest single-screw steamer in the world at that point) the H.B. Kennedy had new boilers and a new lounge installed, was renamed Seattle, and paired with the Tacoma. It made sense to have the Seattle and Tacoma on the Seattle-Tacoma run, so the Indianapolis (Which was to have been renamed Crescent, possibly for service to Port Crescent, a small town that hoped to become a major port on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was served by the Sol Duc for a few seasons, but the anticipated growth never happened, and the site is now a ghost town.) moved over to the “Navy Yard Route” in 1922, taking over for the Seattle.

Unfortunately, the Indianapolis with her blunt bow created a wake “worthy of the Mauretania” according to Gordon Newell, and residents along Rich Passage complained about the wake damaging their beach and bulkheads. This complaint would resurface again and again over the years, as recently as 1998 with the advent of the passenger only fast ferries run by Washington State Ferries.

Residents demanded the Indianapolis slow down, which of course threw the schedule off. Since the wake wasn’t a problem on the more open waters of the Tacoma run, the Indianapolis moved back, and the Seattle returned to the Bremerton run.

Auto ferries were already starting to become a priority of PSN by 1926 when Alexander Peabody took over the company. The Bremerton route already had the converted City of Bremerton and the Seattle, which had been rebuilt for autos in the early 20’s. Black Ball had picked up the Quillayute, had converted the steamers City of Angeles and Whatcom (City of Bellingham and later Quilcene) and had success with those conversions.

The Kitsap County Transportation Company had started auto ferry service with three successively larger diesel ferries starting with the Kitsap of 1925, followed by the Bainbridge in 1928 and finally the Vashon in 1930. Diesel was proving to be far less expensive to maintain and operate, as PSN was finding with the Quillayute and later the Rosario, but they still need more carrying capacity for the ever-increasing demand for auto service on all routes on Puget Sound. The Chippewa had been successfully converted, (and was about to be rebuilt a second time) when PSN looked at its fleet and decided that the Indianapolis could be converted to carry cars.

Improved road conditions on the corridor between Tacoma and Seattle had finally brought an end to the run. Though she could still do a day’s work hauling passengers when needed, the Tacoma was converted into an excursion vessel, making runs across the Strait to Victoria. She proved to be every bit as adept in this role as she had been carrying passengers to and from Tacoma and Seattle.

For the Indianapolis, PSN had another idea in mind. None of her propulsion was replaced. Her lower deck was cleared out and a turntable installed at the stern to spin cars to face the front of the vessel. The bow was removed, with seemingly no effort to make it aesthetically pleasing–it looked chopped off. The new “ferry” could carry around 32 cars.

While it isn’t known if the small size of the Indianapolis discouraged the company from converting any more of its steamers to ferries, it’s hard not to notice that none of the other steamers in the fleet (Sol Duc, Kulshan, Tacoma, etc) was converted to carry cars.

For the next eight years she worked the Port Townsen run, until the ferries from San Francisco started being purchased by Black Ball. One by one, the steam-powered ferries went into layup.

One by one the old steamers were scrapped. The Indianapolis was one of the first to go, cut up by the end of 1938.

Today the Indianapolis is all but forgotten, despite the plethora of postcards still out there. (Google “Indianapolis” and see what I mean. Even adding “S.S.” doesn’t bring up much for this particular vessel. Adding Puget Sound helps somewhat.) While not the most pleasant looking vessel in her later years, she could be counted on for reliable service, and was integral to the development of modern ferry operations on Puget Sound.

Below are a series of never-before published photos from my archive of her scrapping. The steamer next to her in these shots is the Kulshan.