The Chadburn Engine Order Telegraphs
Technology on board the S.S. Badger spans nearly 200 years. One of the oldest forms of technology is the engine order telegraph (EOT), which is used to communicate between the pilot houses and the engine room. The EOT was created by an engineer and medical doctor named Charles Grafton Page (1812-1868) in the 1850s. The…
Passing Ships
For decades it was a common site to see multiple cross-lake car ferries coming and going from Ludington, Michigan’s port. In this photograph, taken in the 1980s, passengers on the bow of the SS Badger watch the SS City of Midland 41 pass by. The City of Midland continues to serve the Great Lakes as…
The Badger’s Main Lounge
This is a view of what the Main Lounge on the SS Badger looked like shortly after it started service in March 1953. For those familiar with the ship, this photo was taken near what is now the cruise director’s office located on the starboard side. Through the years the lounge area was modified to…
Loading the Badger from Slip No. 2
The SS Badger was built in 1953. Until 1990, its primary cargo was railcars (thus the name carferry). Since 1992 the Badger’s primary purpose has been to transport passengers, automobiles and commercial vehicles between Ludington, Michigan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. This photo shows the railcars being loaded onto the Badger at No. 2 Slip in Ludington…
Launching the Badger, Sept. 6, 1952
The SS Badger was launched on September 6, 1952 at the docks of Christy Corporation in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. In the background is her sister ship, the SS Spartan, which had been launched on Jan. 4, 1952 with little fanfare. Since the two ships were identical, executives at the C&O Railroad wanted to hold a…
The Original Badger Crew, 1953
On March 16, 1953, a week before the SS Badger’s maiden voyage, its crew posed for a photograph on its bow. Seated centered, in front, is Capt. Bernard Robertson, the Badger’s first captain. Other officers included John Turner, first mate; J.E. Halden, second mate; Willis Cross, Jr., third mate; Sylvester Larsen, chief engineer; Raymond Hall,…
The Pere Marquette, the first Ludington-based car ferry
By Rob Alway In the mid-1890s, the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway began negotiating with the Wisconsin Central Railroad to construct a branch from its main line at Neenah-Menasha, Wisconsin to Manitowoc, where its rails would connect with tan F&PM ferry. The goal was to transport railcars across Lake Michigan on car ferries. The railroad…
The Great Lakes’ Largest Car Ferry Fleet: Ship Numbering
Photo: Pere Marquette carferries 15, 17, 18, and 19 in Ludington, 1913 By Rob Alway The tradition of numbering the Ludington ferries began in 1883 when the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway debuted its first two break-bulk freighters, F&PM Nos. 1 and 2. Its first car ferry, the Pere Marquette, which began service in…
William Mercereau, the father of the Ludington carferry fleet
By Rob Alway William Lincoln Mercereau served as the superintendent of the Pere Marquette Railway carferries for 31 years. He was born on June 9, 1866 in Union, New York, the son of Seymour and Mary Mercereau. According to his obituary, published on June 24, 1957 in the Ludington Daily News, he spent some of…
2025: 150 years of cross-lake service from Ludington
By Rob Alway The year 2025 marks 150 years of cross-lake service from Ludington, Michigan to Wisconsin. In 1875, the first steamships to transport goods across Lake Michigan were known as break-bulk freighters. Railcars at that time did not travel across the lake, so the contents of the cars were removed, loaded onto the break-bulk…