THE STEAMER "ROOSEVELT" at MICHIGAN CITY = IND.

Date: Circa 1912 Source Type: Postcard Publisher, Printer, Photographer: Smith and Nissen Postmark: None Collection: Steven R. Shook Remark: Faintly visible in the distance behind the ship is the sand dune known as "Hoosier Slide." It was the largest dune located along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Indiana. This dune was mined for its sand, which was used in the production of glass (mostly by the Ball Corporation) and for fill in the Chicago region. A electric power generating facility was later built on the site of the dune.

The S.S. Theodore Roosevelt was a passenger steamer built in 1906 at Toledo, Ohio, by the Toledo Shipbuilding Company, and operated commercially on Lake Michigan. The ship was ordered taken over by the United States Navy on April 6, 1918, for World War I service as a troop transport, being acquired by the Navy from the Roosevelt Steamship Company in the spring of 1918 and assigned Identification Number (Id. No.) 1478. The ship and fitted out as a troop transport during the summer and fall of 1918.

By November 1, 1918, the S.S. Theodore Roosevelt was assigned to duty as a transport carrying troops back and forth across the English Channel between the United Kingdom and France. She continued that duty at least until April 1, 1919, and is believed to have returned to the United States sometime in April or May of 1919.

The S.S. Theodore Roosevelt was at New York awaiting disposition as of June 1, 1919. On July 1, 1919, the ship was sold to the Cleveland Steamship Company and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. The S.S. Theodore Roosevelt resumed a commercial career as a passenger ship on the Great Lakes, operating on Lake Erie. In 1926, the ship was sold to the Maritime Securities Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and underwent modifications. In 1927, the ship was again sold to the Chicago Roosevelt Steamship Company of Duluth, Minnesota; as a result this sale, the ship moved back to operating on Lake Michigan. Later, the ship operated in the Detroit, Michigan, area, and perhaps elsewhere in the Great Lakes. She was sold again to T. J. McGuire of Duluth.

The S.S. Theodore Roosevelt appears to have been laid up sometime around 1945. She was sold in 1946 to the Cleveland and Cedar Point Steamship Company of Duluth, then again in 1947 to the Cleveland and Buffalo Steamship Company of Cleveland. Finally, the ship was sold for scrap in 1950 to the Cream City Lumber and Wrecking Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.