Alaska Steamship Company

The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. Charles Peabody, one of the six founding members, served as president of the company from its creation until 1912. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. In 1898, the Puget Sound Navigation Company was formed as a subsidiary, serving as means of putting the Alaska Steamship Company's more obsolete vessels to use in the Puget Sound routes. The Alaska Steamship Company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909. The Alaska Steamship Company retained its name through the merger, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. The company greatly benefitted from the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which forced two Canadian shipping companies out of the Alaska market.cite web| title = Guide to the Alaska Steamship Company Photographs of Docks and Harbors| publisher = University of Washington| date = 2008-05-13| url = http://www.lib.washington.edu/Specialcoll/findaids/docs/photosgraphics/AlaskaSteamshipCompanyPHColl646.xml| accessdate = 2008-05-24]

The company's rapidly growing prominence in the shipping industry continued in 1930 when it purchased the Pacific Steamship Company. The federal government took control of the company's fleet of fifteen vessels during World War II. After World War II, the Alaska Steamship Company was slowly driven out of business due to the end of federal subsidies, rising fuel and labor costs, and new competition from the trucking industry and cargo airlines. In an effort to reduce costs, the Alaska Steamship company started implementing tugs, barges, and container ships. These allowed for smaller crews, faster loading and unloading, and less damage to the cargo. Unable to compete with faster, cheaper air service, the company discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954, though by then it had established itself within the container ship industry. Despite these efforts, the Alaska Steamship Company shut down in January 1971.cite web| last = Antonson| first = Jo| title = Marine Transportation| work = America's Territory| publisher = Alaska Humanities Forum| date = 2008| url = http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=228| accessdate = 2008-05-19] cite web| last = Swiggum| first = S.| last2 = Kohli| first2 = M.| title = Alaska Steamship Company| work = The Fleets| publisher = TheShipsList| date = 2007-03-01| url = http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/alaska.htm| accessdate = 2008-05-19]

hipwrecks

While most of the ships in the Alaska Steamship Company's fleet ended up being sold, scrapped, or repurposed, several of the ships ended their careers as wrecks:
* The Ohio, purchased in 1898, wrecked on the coast of British Columbia in 1909.
* The Olympia, acquired by merger in 1909, ran aground on Bligh Reef on 10 December 1910. [cite news | title = Olympia's Passengers Safe| pages = 10| publisher = New York Times| date = 1910-12-13| url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A07EEDA1330E233A25750C1A9649D946196D6CF| accessdate = 2008-05-17]
* The Seward, acquired by merger in 1909, was captured and sunk by Unterseeboot 52 on 7 April 1917.
* The Mariposa, purchased in 1912, sank after hitting Straits Island Reef on 18 December 1917.
* The Dirigo, built in 1898, sank on 16 November 1918 on a voyage from Cordova to Seattle.
* The Alaska, built in 1889, was stranded and sank at Blunt's Reef off of California on 6 August 1921.
* The Kennecott, built in 1921, wrecked at Hunters Point in 1923.
* The Aleutian, built in 1898, sank off of Kodiak Island on 26 May 1929.
* The Curacao, built in 1895, caught fire and later sank on 13 July 1940.
* The Latouche, built in 1910, was captured by the Japanese navy in 1942 and was sunk by a US air attack on 21 October 1944.
* The Yukon, purchased in 1923, ran aground in Johnstone Bay on 4 February 1946.
* The Redondo, purchased in 1915, sunk at Richmond, California in 1948.
* The Oduna, purchased in 1964, wrecked at Unimak Island on 26 November 1965.

References