The City of Milwaukee carried railroad cars across Lake Michigan

Before a railroad could move freight easily around Lake Michigan, it had another option: roll loaded railcars onto a ship and take them across. The City of Milwaukee is one of the ships built for that job. Its enclosed car deck has four tracks and, by the National Park Service’s count, room for 22 modern-size freight cars.

Manitowoc Shipbuilding built the steel-hulled, steam-powered ferry in 1931 for the Grand Trunk Railroad. She ran from Grand Haven to Milwaukee and later from Muskegon, sometimes working for other railroads when Grand Trunk did not need her. The State of Michigan bought the ship for the Ann Arbor Railroad after Grand Trunk ended its ferry service in 1978. She kept working through 1982.

What makes the ship nationally important is more precise than age alone. The National Park Service calls City of Milwaukee the sole surviving example of a pre-1940, “classic-period” Great Lakes car ferry. It also found the ship nearly original, with the specialized features that explain how this unusual rail-and-water system worked. Those qualities supported its National Historic Landmark designation in 1990.

Today the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee keeps the ship on Manistee Lake as a floating museum. Seasonal guided tours take visitors through the vessel and down to the car deck, where the rails are still visible. The route includes steep stairs. The museum also offers overnight stays in restored passenger and crew rooms during part of the season, so this landmark can be explored as a ship rather than viewed only from shore.