Is There Ferry Service Between Chicago And Michigan?
WBEZ brings y'all unbiased news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to appointment on the stories that matter.
Barbara Laing is a vibrant, five-cups-of-coffee-a-day kind of person. And that caffeine does not go to waste; Barbara owns and operates a small photography and framing shop in Chicago'due south West Andersonville neighborhood, and she has to hustle to go on all the balls in the air.
Come summertime, Barbara needs a sabbatical. An escape. Then, occasionally she'll set aside a weekend and venture to Southwestern Michigan to get away from the stress of her business and to-do lists: "I just love to kind of poke effectually. I dearest to relax … take walks downwards by the lake. There's lots of beautiful rocks that you notice on Lake Michigan over there on the sands."
But when Barbara gets in her auto to caput back to Chicago on Sunday, I-94 looks more like a parking lot than a expressway. That's when her internal dialogue begins: "I'k just like, take yourself out of this moment, go along your eyes on the road, but just remember that walk you took on the lake. Recollect that overnice meal you lot had … and remember information technology volition exist over in, oh, I don't know, three or four hours."
1 day while strolling forth Lake Michigan, Barbara dreamed of an alternating mode to make the trip, and asked the states to investigate:
Has there ever been a ferry between Chicago and Michigan, and why isn't in that location one now?
Barbara has always had a certain reverence for Lake Michigan ("It's kind of poetic to exist out on the water," she says), but fifty-fifty if you lot don't share her feelings, you've probably been stuck in a horrible motorcar trip at some point and tin relate to rooting for an alternative.
So could a lake ferry be that alternative — a waterborne savior, if you will? Are your finger's crossed?
When Lake Michigan was Chicago'southward pike
Turns out, in that location was an alternative! It's just that, at the time, people chosen them steamers, not ferries.
In the mid-19th century, back before cars or trucks paved roads, the Not bad Lakes were the region'south superhighways. Thou steamships darted from harbor to harbor, making money by moving products and people.
Ted Karamanski, a public historian at Loyola University, emphasizes that both revenue streams were vital to the profitability of the steamship manufacture.
"These were steamships that carried excursionists out for a day of fun on Lake Michigan, or they would behave light manufacturing goods and then, of course … fresh fruit from Southwest Michigan to the Chicago produce markets," he says.
In the 1880's, passenger traffic was thriving. In that location were two different kinds of tourists on the lake: the daytrippers and the overnighters.
Daytrippers went from "Chicago to Michigan City, or Chicago to St. Joseph, relatively short three, iv, five hr trips" across the lake, says Karamanski. St. Joseph, Michigan, even became known as Chicago'due south Coney Island. People would picnic and lounge and splash nigh and then jump on the boat at 5:00 p.m. and exist back in Chicago by nightfall.
The overnighters took 12-hr trips upwards to Northwest Michigan, bringing tourists to destinations like Grand Traverse Bay, Piddling Traverse Bay, even some to Mackinac Isle for longer stays, Karamanski says. These were usually wealthy travelers who could afford to spend weeks or even months away from the city.
Only non all of the region's tourists traveled merely to unwind. Before antihistamines, many Chicagoans escaped their allergies in the crisp air of Northern Michigan. Little tent cities popped upwardly along the shore; they were called "achoo clubs."
"They would usually be organized past different religious denominations," Karamanski explains. "Then the Methodists would have a club where people could go, and the Presbyterians would exist in another identify, the Baptists somewhere else." That way, husbands who stayed in the city for the summer to piece of work could balance assured that their wives and children were escaping the oestrus and histamines in a prophylactic, morally righteous place. Over time the small tent colonies developed into clusters of cottages, and somewhen those cottages became enormous Victorian manors.
At the turn of the last century, Petoskey was just one of the many popular destinations that catered to Chicago tourists along the northern shoreline of Michigan. (Fun fact: In 1882 the Western Hay Fever Association christened Petoskey as its official headquarters.)
Jane Garver, Co-Executive Managing director of the Little Traverse Bay Historical Museum in Petoskey, imagines the area offered a literal breath of fresh air to jaded Chicagoans: "If I got off the boat from Chicago … I would be so relieved to go far here on Little Traverse Bay: cool breezes, a cute expanse, million-dollar sunsets, and plenty to do without beingness and so overwhelming that you lot wouldn't know what to do."
There was an opera house and dance halls and tea rooms — you proper name it.
"People might be surprised to know that there were then many well-known names that visited here," Garver says. "In fact, I'm surprised when I go through records and encounter … 'Oh yep, Amelia Earhart, she came here and spoke here.'" Mark Twain gave a lecture, and Ernest Hemingway wiled abroad his babyhood summers at his family'south cottage. The list goes on.
The decline of steamships
Only, you should know, a voyage on a steamship was not all fun and games. Karamanski noted that, in high winds, it could get a little bouncy on the lake, "which could make this nice petty cruise ship what sometimes they used to call a vomit comet."
And sometimes, the boats were merely plain unsafe. Like the Due south.S. Eastland. You may have heard nearly this: On July 24, 1915, about 2,500 people boarded the Eastland for Western Electrical Visitor'south almanac employee picnic when the gunkhole tipped into the murky Chicago River.
844 people died in the accident, xx feet from dry out country. "You lot would recall that this might be sort of the death knell of steamships," Karamanski explains. "But information technology wasn't."
Cars were.
Steamships took a huge hit after the introduction of the automobile. People and products — the ii legs that the steamship industry stood upon — were no longer bound to the waterways. Karamanski emphasizes that non anybody defected from the steamers correct away: "Steamers were still very pop through the early on '20s, but beginning in about 1925, we see a steep decline in the number of people traveling by steamship, and this is tied to the comeback of roads, especially in Michigan. Since Michigan was the center for the automotive business, they invested a lot of coin in skilful, modern roads."
And, over time, it only got worse. During the 1950s, the interstate highway system began to zigzag beyond the nation. As infrastructure improved, more and more people abandoned lake ferries in favor of their cars.
In that location were consequences for people and communities on both sides of the lake.
Karamanski believes Chicagoans lost a celebrated, intimate connexion to the lake, which had helped the city develop in the first place.
"Just steps abroad from the pavement of Chicago, nosotros got three-hundred miles of wilderness, an alien environment, which if you don't accept care, it will impale you," he says. "Nearly Chicagoans just don't appreciate that. It'southward just taken for granted like the h2o in our taps."
On the Michigan side of the equation, Garver says that the highways drastically changed the face of Petoskey. Dorsum in the day, "when travelers arrived past steamship or by train hither … they had their selection of 15 different luxury hotels," all centrally located in the middle of downtown. Since the age of the machine, all but i of the those 15 hotels either went out of business organisation or burned downwards and was never rebuilt. Today, plenty of hotels dot the interstate on the way into town, hoping to exist the showtime place you see well before you reach Petoskey'south celebrated city center.
The ferry-less fate of the Chicago region was sealed in 1958 with the completion of the Chicago Skyway. As Karmanski explains, the Skyway was "designed specifically to get people, fast, from downtown Chicago via the Dan Ryan Expressway to Southwest Michigan. So why take a boat when y'all tin practice it in an hour and a half?"
But these days, in bad traffic, that same trip might accept closer to three hours. Which leads one to wonder: Could ferries brand a comeback?
Is there a case to be made for a Chicago lake ferry revival?
Remember: Questioner Barbara Laing'due south interest in the history of lake ferries is not only cornball. She's a business woman and she knows a money-making opportunity when she sees ane.
"Hither's the thing," she says. "As a small business owner, you look for concern ventures, and you lot recall well what else could I practise?"
A Chicago ferry came to mind, she says, but, "I don't have a helm'southward license, then it'due south non inside my realm of feel. Simply somebody should do information technology."
Afterward all, there are two ferries that operate on the lake today. Lake Express runs from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Muskegon, Michigan. The S.South. Badger operates between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan. Information technology stands to reason that Chicago, with its lakeside location and enormous metropolitan population, chock with potential customers, could have a mod ferry service, also.
Correct?
Wrong, says Ken Szallai, president and founder of Lake Express. His professional opinion: "Running a ferry parallel to the interstate highway organization is not a viable ferry operation."
Szallai explains that a Chicago ferry would compete with the interstate and Amtrak's Pere Marquette line. Milwaukee'south ferry doesn't accept that problem; the Lake Express' road is a direct shot across the h2o, which helps customers cutting out hundreds of miles of travel around the lake.
Szallai says when you factor in the fierce contest, plus operating expenses and the short operating flavor thank you to the region's violent winter … Well, he'southward non going to invest in a Chicago ferry anytime soon.
But that hasn't stopped other people from trying. Douglas Callaghan of Grand Rapids, Michigan, chuckles when asked about a business venture he pioneered over a decade agone: "Oh aye, the infamous ferry."
Why was it infamous, you might be wondering? "Well, because it never made it into the water," Callaghan retorts.
In 2003 and 2004, Callaghan's pocket-size company, LEF Corp (Lake Express Ferry), attempted to reinstate a ferry service between Chicago's Navy Pier and Benton Harbor in St. Joseph, Michigan. They conducted a feasibility study, analyzing travel demand and what type of boat would be best suited to the projection. And, as Callaghan puts it, "there were near five super-rich lovers of catamarans — not all American — who invested in our proposal."
Kim Gallagher of the Southwestern Michigan Planning Commission was a consultant on LEF Corp's proposal at the time. She remembers that the local community was delighted when investors were brought in for a tour of the port: "The Benton Harbor, St. Joseph area was very supportive of the projection considering it offered an additional way of transportation to go around the lake in two and half hours."
Both Gallagher and Callaghan agree that the primary reason for the proposal'southward failure originated on the other side of the lake. "I think somewhere along the line, a message came down from on loftier in Chicago that said we're non going to do information technology," Callaghan recalls. "Every time we turned around, another issue would come up."
After awhile, information technology became clear to Callaghan that the proposal was expressionless in the water and LEF Corp disbanded.
When asked to comment on the reasons that Callaghan's proposal fell through, Nick Shields, Director of Communications for Navy Pier, Inc., has this to say: "It is our understanding that the company went out of business in 2004 and nosotros did not receive a final proposal before so."
Still, Shields affirms that Navy Pier remains open to the idea of a ferry revival: "Aye, Navy Pier, Inc. would consider a future investor's proposal. Nosotros view the idea as a unique opportunity to bring new visitors to Chicago."
Who knows? If maritime technology improves and ferries go faster while Chicago-expanse traffic gets worse, and global warming heats upwardly the planet and eliminates our icy winters, mayhap, merely maybe, someone will revive a Chicago-Michigan ferry.
Should that day come, Barbara Laing will exist the commencement in line to go out on the water and float all the way to Michigan, just like the generations of Chicagoans before her: "Information technology's something that people long to do, I think. If at that place's water there, you desire to go out in it."
Chloe Prasinos is an independent reporter and producer based in Chicago. Follow her @chloeprasinos.
Notes on map:
Ferry travel times for 1947 were calculated with an average speed of xix mph and based on the routes depicted in a related infographic from Chicago Tribune archives. Ferry travel times for 2015 were calculated with an average speed of 35 mph and informed by our interview with Ken Szallai, president and founder of the Lake Limited ferry in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Car travel routes from Chicago (Navy Pier) to St. Joseph and South Oasis, Michigan, depict general directions, not exact directions over specific streets, highways and interstates. The 1947 route includes United states of america 41 and Cherry Arrow Highway, with an boilerplate speed of 45 mph established in consultation with Joseph Schwieterman of DePaul University'due south Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Evolution. The 2015 car travel fourth dimension was suggested by Google Maps with a road via I-xc/94.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the timeframe during which the U.S. Interstate Highway System affected transportation options and habits. The correct decade for delineating the commencement of that program is the 1950s.
Source: https://www.wbez.org/stories/ferry-tale-could-a-chicago-to-michigan-ferry-return-from-extinction/6fa66ca2-d48b-4047-ab79-8eda457c4c25
Posted by: byaskentemad1984.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Is There Ferry Service Between Chicago And Michigan?"
Post a Comment