Thanks to Paul Strubeck 5

Here are some previous posts with photos from Paul.

If you want to see all my posts with photos of these wonderful towing machines, click here, the tag GLT.

Illinois is typical of this fleet.  Look at the riveted hull.  She’s still working, launched in 1914, before the US entered WW1!!!    Behind her is Idaho, 1931.  If you want an exemplar of American engineering and manufacturing, you need look no farther than this fleet.

New Jersey dates from 1924.    . . . . .       And Wisconsin is the oldest.  I’ll let you guess and you can read the answer below.

Wyoming . . .  1929.

Many thanks to Paul Strubeck.

1897!!  And she still works.  some day I hope she goes to the Smithsonian, as long as the Smithsonian establishes a wet display area.  And of course, the National Museum of the Great Lakes has already seen fit to add one of these to their wet display.  more on that later.   If I lived closer, I’d be there on November 30.

There’s a whole chapter on G-tugs in Tugboats of the Great Lakes by Franz A. VonRiedel.