vindy.com | ‘The ship that built Cleveland’

Sunday, June 20, 2010

William G. Mather is a reminder of a once-golden era on the Great Lakes

By Bob Downing

McClatchy Newspapers

CLEVELAND

I have a confession: I’ve had a lifelong love affair with the Great Lakes.

It’s something I can’t control, and it continues to this day.

Those feelings were undoubtedly nurtured by family vacations and trips.

But a big part of the Great Lakes’ charm when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s was the hard-working iron-ore boats that traveled its waters.

The boats carried ore, coal, grain and limestone, but for decades, they were a symbol of America’s industrial might. They had a special mystique, a Great Lakes aura.

The boats — big, bulky and clunky in a homely sort of way — hauled Minnesota iron ore south to Cleveland and other Ohio ports to be turned into steel.

One place where you can get a glimpse of what life was like on the Great Lakes is to tour the William G. Mather, a decommissioned ore boat built in 1925.

It is a floating maritime museum docked at the Great Lakes Science Center/NASA Glenn Visitor Center on the Cleveland waterfront. It attempts to interpret the relationship between technology, history, commerce and the environment. It is a reminder of a once-golden era on the Great Lakes.

The steamship, 618 feet in length, 62 feet wide and drawing nearly 33 feet of water when fully loaded, is billed as “the ship that built Cleveland.”

That’s because the bulk carrier, the flagship of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co. (now Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.), was often bound for the steel mills in Cleveland. It was retired in 1980.

The Mather is a Northeast Ohio attraction worth seeing.

The ship was state of the art when it was built and was known for its gracious passenger quarters. Today, the once-elegant ship has the look and feel of your grandmother’s attic.

You can explore the Mather on a do-it-yourself tour in about 90 minutes.

The Mather is filled with hundreds of stories, and volunteers who staff the floating museum are prepared to fill you in.

Standing on the deck, it is hard to fathom how the crew could work aboard such a vessel when winds and storms hit the Great Lakes.

Two lifeboats, each capable of holding 25 people, are displayed on the boat deck, along with other Mather gear and memorabilia.

The museum offers an interesting array of Great Lakes lore and facts, including music, an oversize cauldron used in making steel and, of course, information about the most famous Great Lakes ore boat: the Edmund Fitzgerald.

That boat, bound for Cleveland, went down in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, and is memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song. The crew of 29 perished.

In the early 1980s, the Mather was docked in storage by Cleveland-Cliffs in Toledo. In 1984, a homeless man apparently started a fire on the boat. That caused major damage to the galley and the rear cabins, all of which were rebuilt by volunteers.

In 1987, the boat was donated to the Great Lakes Historical Society. It was brought to Cleveland in 1988. The ship opened to the public in 1991 after $1.2 million and 50,000 volunteer hours were contributed.

In 1995, the Great Lakes Historical Society gave the boat to the newly formed Harbor Heritage Society. The ship was acquired by the Great Lakes Science Center in late 2006.

Today the Mather draws about 25,000 visitors per season. In 2009, 26 volunteers donated nearly 1,500 hours on the Mather.

The Mather is certainly not the only ore boat that has become a floating maritime museum on the Great Lakes. Others have been established in Duluth, Minn.; Superior, Wis.; Sault Ste. Marie, Mich; and Toledo.

Fifty years ago, more than 300 ore boats were still on the Great Lakes.

Today, there are fewer than 120. Some are more than 100 years old and still in service.

As recently as 2006, the ore boats handled 173 million tons of cargo at 63 Great Lakes ports.

The Mather is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily in June, July and August and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday in May, September and October.

Admission is $6.95 plus tax for adults and $4.95 for youths 2 to 17.

The Mather also hosts special events, including parties open to the public on July 4, the tall ships event on July 7 and the Labor Day air show in Cleveland. For reservations, call 216-621-2400.

For more information, call 216-694-2000; or visit www.greatscience.com.