Interlake Steamship Company


The Interlake Steamship Company is an American freight ship company that operates a fleet on the Great Lakes in North America.

History

The firm was founded in 1913 when a consortium of firms bought out the seventeen vessels of the Gilchrist Company, which had gone into receivership. The other firms were: the Lackawanna Steamship Company; the Acme Steamship Company; the Standard Steamship Company; the Provident Steamship Company and the Huron Barge Company. The combined fleet operated 56 vessels.
According to Mark L. Thompson's 1994 Queen of the Lakes, when Interlake launched its largest vessel, the William J. Delancey, its fleet contained 151 vessels, and was capable of carrying over three million tons of cargo at one time.
About April 2018, Interlake established a subsidiary service known as Interlake Logistics Solutions. Although its existing freight services were focused on bulk raw materials, the new service offered shipping on finished goods. The Barker and Tregurtha families, owners of Interlake Steamship, chartered the, barge Montville from Moran Towing to provide this new service on an as-needed basis.
In April 2019, Interlake Steamship announced construction of a long, wide River-class self-unloading bulk freighter. The vessel, to be built by Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, will be the first ship built for the U.S.-flagged Great Lakes fleet since 1983, and the first built by Interlake since 1979. The as-yet unnamed ship is expected for mid-2022 delivery.

Fleet