SS ALEUTIAN (Shipwreck)

About this property

SS Aleutian was a passenger ship in North American coastal service. Built in 1899 for the Ward Line as SS Havana, she would later serve the building of the Panama Canal as SS Panama and ultimately enter Alaskan service as SS Aleutian. In 1898 the Ward Line ordered two ships from William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company in Philadelphia as part of a modernization plan in response to increased passenger and freight demand. The new passenger ship SS Havana was delivered in 1899 and briefly saw military transport service (Official Number 96435) during the Spanish–American War moving two infantry units from Havana, Cuba to Savannah, Georgia. She soon joined the company's steamers linking New York with Nassau, Havana, and Mexican Gulf ports. Havana was sold to the Panama Railroad Steamship Company on behalf of the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1905. She was renamed SS Panama and would serve a crucial role in the construction of the Panama Canal. The steamship company was already running connecting service with New York and San Francisco. It also ran a Central American line of steamships linking Nicaragua, Costa Rica, San Salvador, and Guatemala to Panama City. The shipping service was greatly expanded as canal construction began. The line's heyday was during the construction period; once the canal was finished in 1914 the service shifted to the business of supporting the maintenance and operation of the canal and its supporting infrastructure, including the railroad. In February 1927 Panama was sold to the Alaska Steamship Company and transferred to Pacific coastal service. Renamed SS Aleutian after the volcanic Aleutian Islands that stretch westward from the Alaska Peninsula, the vessel received a complete overhaul and refit in Seattle. At this time she likely would have been converted from a coal- to an oil-fired vessel. Contemporary reports described her as palatial and she became the steamship company's flagship. She entered the company's Alaska service carrying freight, passengers and mail service from Seattle. On 26 May 1929 Aleutian was steaming into Uyak Bay (57.8000°N 154.0667°W / 57.8000; -154.0667 (Uyak Bay)) on the coast of Kodiak Island in clear weather with good visibility when she suddenly shook throughout her hull. She had struck a submerged pinnacle rock off the south end of Amook Island (57°25′30″N 153°50′30″W) that had torn into her. She sank just seven minutes after impact. 153 people on board – 39 passengers and 114 crewmen – made it off and survived, but one crew member, Manuel Dorras, was lost, reported to have gone below to retrieve his lucky horseshoe. A small motorboat took a few of the passengers to Larsen Bay, from which a cannery tender known as the Raven was dispatched to pick up the rest of the survivors and bring them to Larsen Bay as well. After all the survivors had reached Larsen Bay, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey survey ship USC&GS Surveyor met them there and transported them all to Seward in Southcentral Alaska.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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