The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. 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. The company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909, but retained its name, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. During World War II, the government took over the company's ships. When the war ended, the company struggled to compete with the new Alaska Highway for passengers and freight. It discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954 and shut down operations in 1971.
Alaska Steamship Company
Ohio anchored near Nome, Alaska in 1907
Alameda, bought from the Oceanic Steamship Co in 1910
The Skinner & Eddy Corporation, commonly known as Skinner & Eddy, was a Seattle, Washington-based shipbuilding corporation that existed from 1916 to 1923. The yard is notable for completing more ships for the United States war effort during World War I than any other West Coast shipyard, and also for breaking world production speed records for individual ship construction.
Skinner & Eddy
This 1918 montage from Seattle magazine The Town Crier shows the SS West Mahomet, with inset portraits of company vice president Henry G. Seaborn and founders D.E. Skinner and John W. Eddy (left to right at top) and general manager David Rodgers (below).
Launch of the freighter Stolt Nielson from the Skinner & Eddy yard on 22 May 1917
SS West Arrow, one of the first ships built by Skinner & Eddy. This ship was very similar in design to the USSB Design #1013 ships that would later be built by the company