You saw her here just over two years ago.  I took the two fotos below just over a week ago in

drydock at the east end of the Erie Canal.  See more fotos, including from inside her hold, house, and engine room here.  She launched from McDougall-Duluth Shipbuilders in May 1921 as Interwaterways 101.    Two months later, four identical vessels had begun to work the Great Lakes.  This is what remains of the last hull in the series, Interwaterways 105, later Michigan, and scrapped here in the Arthur Kill since 1976.  Interwaterways 102–104 were scrapped in 1950, 1964, and 1977.    Does anyone know of fotos of any of the series operating in the Great Lakes or Erie Canal?I’m concluding that my fascination with some of these now derelict vessels is that they represent our past, have secrets about how we got here, may have given shape and meaning to people who surround us today.  If you see something resembling these unique Eriemax vessels in flea markets, old shoeboxes or albums . . . I’d love to hear about it.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp. 

Alternate names include these following:  Andrew M. Barnes, Robert Barnes Fiertz, Pocahontas, Andros Mariner, Alden Barnes Fiertz, Coastal Carrier, Bay Transport.

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