Lake Michigan Maritime Marginalia, Volume 1, Number 2
Figure 10. One of my all time favorite (no play on words intended) Chicago maritime views: The Favorite and her fleetmate, the America, laid up for the winter just north of the Belmont Avenue bridge (nominal head of navigation for the North Branch of the Chicago River), with the old Riverview amusement park unseen to the right, and the Great Lakes Boatbuilding Company yard, later Henry C. Grebe Company, just above on the left. My assumption is that both were owned by Frank Martinek at the time, which would date the photograph to between 1920 and 1921. The vessel on the far left is the Skater, a veteran of Grand and Little Traverse Bays, among other services; in the distance to the right can be seen a portion of the Columbia [a Mascotte]. William Lafferty Collection.
On 25 June 1914 the Chicago Customs House issued the first enrollment papers to the sixty-foot excursion boat Favorite, awarding her official number 212303, and she immediately joined the city's Lincoln Park excursion fleet. She had been built to the account of two prominent Chicago boat operators, Phil Kegel and Henry Rinke, by Gilbert Anderson, who ran a shipbuilding and repair enterprise on the North Branch of the Chicago River at North Avenue. Anderson had been a master of a number of lumber schooners that traded between Chicago and the Menominee River in northern Wisconsin. Later, he joined Leathem & Smith of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, as a master of several of that firm’s tow barges, most reduced schooners, in the stone trade. During the winters he worked at the Leathem & Smith shipyard, where he learned the skills needed when he set up his own plant in Chicago around 1905. He died in 1919, and eventually his yard became the North Branch Shipyard. The Favorite's profile adhered to that of most of the larger boats built for the Park trade, with two open decks, a pilothouse on the upper deck, and propelled by an internal combustion engine, in the case of the Favorite a 120-hp Kahlenberg. As far as I can ascertain, before Municipal Pier opened she operated from Kegel’s Fish House at the foot of Illinois Street on the Ogden Slip, just a stone’s throw from the Grand Avenue street car line, and was also used to ferry fishermen from Kegel's to the Chicago harbor breakwalls.
The Favorite's Steamboat Inspection Service license specified her passenger capacity as but ten with a crew of three except between May and September, that period of optimal weather that corresponded to the lakefront excursion season, when she could legally carry 158 passengers and eight crew. The license restricted her range of operation to Chicago Harbor, the Chicago River, fifteen miles north or south of the river's mouth on the lake, and no more than three miles offshore. Like her dozen or so counterparts in the trade, the Favorite frequently changed owners. On 8 October 1917 Kegel acquired his partner's half-interest in the boat; on 12 December 1919 the Favorite became the property of the Hintze family of Chicago, one of the city's largest operators in the excursion business. On 2 September 1920 the Favorite was sold by Fred and Edward Hintze to Katharine Murphy of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and registered at Milwaukee. Although this sale would seem to signal a drastic change in the Favorite's service, this was not the case: Katharine Murphy's husband, Captain J. E. Murphy, although a Sturgeon Bay resident, operated several boats in the Chicago excursion trade, including the Hazel 96332 and North Shore 3626 [a Bon Ami]. However, little over a month later Murphy resold the boat to Mary Martinek, namesake of the Mary M., whose husband Frank continued to operate the Favorite on the Lincoln Park route.
The Metamorphosis of a Chicago Excursion Boat: The North Shore
Figures 11 and 12. Above shows the Bon Ami 3626 when she operated for the Hart Transportation Company, calling at harbors primarily in upper Wisconsin, especially Door County. Built in 1894 by Rogers & Bird at Saugatuck, Michigan, she spent the first five years of her life in the passenger and fruit trade between the lower east shore of Michigan and Chicago, followed by stint on the Isle Royale route on Lake Superior for Singer and later A. Booth & Co. Hart acquired her in 1909, and following a bad fire at Green Bay on 24 October 1918 she was bought by Captain J. E. Murphy of Sturgeon Bay. Below shows her metamorphosis at Sturgeon Bay in 1919 when Murphy converted the venerable vessel into an excursion boat for the Lincoln Park trade, renamed North Shore in honor of her new range of service. Murphy added a dummy funnel ahead of the original, made her pilothouse more "modern" and completely opened up her decks, the latter modification a standard step in the metamorphosis of an older cross-lake passenger boat into a Chicago excursion craft. With the demise of the lakefront excursion business, the North Shore was abandoned twenty years later about three hundred yards from where this photograph below was taken, at the southeast corner of the Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company yard. Top photo, William Lafferty Collection. Bottom photograph, reproduced from Arthur C. and Lucy F. Frederickson, Ships and Shipwrecks in Door County, Wisconsin, v. 1 (Sturgeon Bay: Door County Publishing Company, 1961).
Little more than two years later Martinek sold the vessel to Carl Jacobi, another Chicagoan of a well-known local fishing family. On 27 May 1925 Jacobi in turn sold the Favorite for $1500 to a partnership consisting of Arthur St. Peter and Arthur Olson, Olson a local boat captain and operator and, according to the Chicago City Directory of the day, a professional masseur as well. On 6 July 1926 "Beef" Olson acquired his partner's interest in the Favorite and for the remainder of that season and throughout that of 1927 Olson operated the Favorite on the Lincoln Park-Municipal Pier run, along with two 32-foot motor launches he also ran in a lakefront water-taxi service. The career of the Favorite would have remained typical of the scores of other Chicago excursion boats that plied among Chicago's parks during the summer and laid-up along the North Branch and Ogden Slip during the winter, had it not been for the tragic notoriety gained by the vessel the summer of 1927.
Late in the day of Thursday, 28 July 1927, at the Fullerton Avenue landing of Lincoln Park, the Favorite loaded sixty-two passengers, mostly women with their children enjoying a warm summer weekday afternoon on the lakefront. At 3:30 PM, with "Beef" Olson in command and a crew of five (including two black musicians and augmented by Olson's ten-year-old daughter), the Favorite left Lincoln Park on a southeast course headed around Chicago harbor's northerly breakwall towards Municipal Pier, the reverse of the route attempted by the Mary M. nine years earlier. While off North Avenue, barely a mile from the Lincoln Park landing, the Favorite encountered increasingly freshening south-westerly winds, while over the city there appeared burgeoning, menacing thunderheads. Olson attempted to keep the Favorite's nose into the wind, but twenty minutes after the craft had left Lincoln Park the wind increased to nearly gale strength. The meteorological phenomenon of sudden, intense thunderstorms from the south-west is a common enough occurrence during Chicago summers, but the swift fury of this particular squall had disastrous consequences. Olson quickly lost the battle to keep his boat headed into the maelstrom. Within minutes after the storm struck, the Favorite began to turn broadside to the wind and seas. Conflicting reports state that the passengers panicked and rushed to the boat's leeside, while others maintain that they calmly proceeded to the craft's port seeking shelter from the whipping wind and pelting rain; in any case, the sudden shift in passenger load coupled with the heavy seas appear to have fatally upset the boat. The Favorite, broadside to the substantial wind gusts, heeled far over to port with her upper deck awning catching the wind like a sail, quickly shipping torrents of water over its port rail from the raging lake. Passengers were instantly swept off the Favorite's decks or, as the hull quickly settled, carried down with the boat, trapped between the upper and lower decks. With its hull filled, the Favorite settled upright on the lake bottom, a half-mile off North Avenue, with only its pilothouse and awning above the surface of the lake. Olson, who had managed to scramble to safety through an open pilothouse window, his engineer, George Jones, who had dashed from the craft's flooded engine compartment, and the sole deckhand, Leo Hersom, all threw life preservers to the struggling souls in the water around the foundered vessel. Olson eventually managed to release one the Favorite's small lifeboats, pushing several children into it, all of whom reached shore safely.
Rescuers Converge on the Favorite
Figure 13. Eugene McDonald's yacht Zenith (named in honor of the prominent radio manufacturing concern he headed) assists is recovering both survivors and bodies from the sunken Favorite during the late afternoon of 27 July 1928. The bow of the City of Chicago tug Fred A. Britten is visible ahead of the Zenith. William Lafferty Collection.
Figure 14. Lifeguards from the Chicago Avenue and Oak Street Beaches, as well as Coast Guardsman, search the Favorite for bodies during the early evening. William Lafferty Collection.
The squall had hit with such sudden intensity that the Favorite foundered within a matter of minutes. Around the sunken hull passengers flailed for help, trying to keep above water, while more remained trapped, fatally, within the vessel itself. The storm had turned the sunny afternoon black, with visibility nil. A few hundred yards from the Favorite when the storm struck was the large motor yacht Doris, owned by Chicago industrialist William Hofnauer, bound north for Wilmette. Visibility was so poor that Hofnauer, at the helm of his boat, was not aware of the Favorite's difficulty until a flash of lightning illuminated the craft's predicament. Hofnauer, himself having trouble managing the Doris in the squall, maneuvered her as close as possible to the sunken Favorite; the crew and guests aboard the Doris pulled as many Favorite passengers as they could find from the lake, then proceeded to Municipal Pier. Meantime, the plight of the Favorite had been witnessed from shore, where lifeguards notified police, fire, and coast guard attachments. The fireboat Graeme Stewart 206149 [C 174156] raced to the scene from its Chicago River station, as did surfboats from the Coast Guard station at the breakwall opposite the river's mouth. When Hofnauer's yacht reached Municipal Pier, it found itself enlisted (in the best Chicago political tradition) to bring a bevy of unlikely municipal officials, including the President of the Board of Education, to the disaster scene for an immediate inspection of the site. On shore off North Avenue, champion swimmer Johnny Weismuller and his brother Pete, captain of the Oak Street beach lifeguards, witnessed the aftermath of the Favorite's sinking. Transported to the scene in a motor runabout, each, as well as other lifeguards, dove onto the hulk to recover bodies. All available police and fire department resuscitation units in the city were dispatched to the southern edge of Lincoln Park to aid victims brought to the esplanade; fatalities were brought to several Near North funeral homes. Soon, in addition to a variety of small craft, the fire tug, and the Doris, more vessels joined the rescue efforts,, including Eugene McDonald's well-known yacht Zenith and the city tug Fred A. Britten 202516 [a Alida, c Frank Sears II, d Elliott B., e Sid Gernander]. Barely an hour after the foundering of the Favorite thousands of curious homebound commuters lined the lakefront north of Municipal Pier to watch the rescue operations. Just before nightfall the tug Wm. A. Lydon 225913 [b Holly Ann] and the derrick barge No. 5 171287, both of the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company fleet, arrived at the scene of the disaster from South Chicago; working under the powerful floodlights of the Graeme Stewart, divers managed by 10 PM to rig slings beneath the Favorite's hull. The No. 5 then slowly raised the hulk while coast guardsmen scurried about the Favorite's decks and innards, looking for additional bodies; seven were found, two women, four children, and an infant. Altogether, the final fatality toll numbered twenty-seven, all women and children but for one man.
The Favorite, Raised from the Lake Bed
Figure 15. The night of her foundering, the Favorite is plucked from the lake bottom by the derrick barge No. 5; note the newsreel cameraman at the lower right.
Meanwhile, "Beef" Olson and his crew had been whisked to the Chicago Avenue police station for interrogation. There, he, the other crew, and his daughter, described the events which led to the loss of the Favorite that afternoon, each maintaining that the suddenness and ferocity of the squall, as well as the shift in passenger load to the craft's lee, had caused the disaster. Typical of the era, Chicago's afternoon and morning newspapers played the Favorite story to the hilt, providing lurid details in early editions of unsuccessful resuscitation efforts and grieving relatives' anguish, while in later editions speculating upon Olson's seamanship and the Favorite's seaworthiness. The best journalistic coup occurred when a Tribune reporter discovered that a Favorite survivor, Gertrude Berndt, had exactly twelve years ago the previous Sunday also survived the infamous Eastland capsizing in the Chicago River, a disaster to which Chicago papers were comparing the Favorite's sinking. Mrs. Berndt's remarks were incriminating: She labelled the crew as "dumb" in their rescue efforts and said she remarked as she boarded the craft, "I don't like the looks of this boat---it has a tendency to lean to one side." Mrs. Berndt also made disparaging remarks about the condition and placement of the vessel's life preservers; she lost four family members with the sinking of the Favorite.
In a flurry of official posturing the morning after the Favorite sank, no less than four separate inquiries were convened to look into the causes of the tragedy. Both State Attorney's and police investigations weighed the possibility of criminal negligence on the part of the Favorite's crew, while the City Council appointed a committee to investigate the overall operation of the city's many excursion boats. The most pertinent and substantial inquiry was that called by the federal Steamboat Inspection Service, mandated by law to investigate fully such marine disasters. While these committees and inquiries were being formed, the sad, soggy hull of the Favorite was towed from Belmont Harbor, where she had been taken the night before for further inspection, to the Randolph Street slip, becoming the object of curious scrutiny by Loop office workers.
Predictably, the Favorite debacle had a swift, adverse effect upon the city's excursion trade. The Lincoln Park fleet scurried to the Ogden Slip and North Branch to wait out the reluctance of park-goers to trust their craft; the Jackson Park fleet, composed of, on the average, substantially larger boats, maintained its schedule, but to considerably fewer passengers. However, by the next Sunday the Favorite episode appeared to have been forgotten by Chicagoans, with passenger traffic between Lincoln Park and downtown nearly normal on four operating vessels, ranging from the little T. B. Banner 145106 [a Truant, b Pilgrim, c Hum, d Howard F.] to the 110-foot Saugatuck. The various inquiries, though, had not forgotten the Favorite. The next week a coroner's jury inspected life saving equipment on various lakefront passenger boats, prompted by further allegations that the Favorite carried defective life preservers. Both the Mineral City (which had assisted in the Favorite rescue effort by ferrying survivors to Municipal Pier) and the larger Skater were found to have rotted life belts. The City Council appropriated funds for surfboats to be stationed along the lakefront for aid should an emergency like that which befell the Favorite arise again. Political bickering also erupted over exactly what type of vessel should have city sanction to call at Lincoln Park. During the more important federal inquiry, though, a number of important revelations were uncovered. Virtually every witness, including William Hofnauer who had rescued most of the Favorite's survivors and who had become somewhat of a folk hero in Chicago as a result, testified that Olson and his crew had handled themselves in a highly capable manner during the catastrophe. Olson was lucky that Lou Sabota, master of the 46-foot excursion boat U. S. A. 212253 [b Daisy May, c Lucky], had decided to take a "busman's holiday" aboard the Favorite that fateful afternoon. Sabota maintained to the federal investigators that the crew had performed professionally and that, considering the quick intensity of the storm, the Favorite had been doomed in any case. Sabota lost part of a hand in rescuing survivors from the sunken hull of the Favorite. As testimony to the freakish nature of the squall which had hit the Favorite, Weather Bureau instruments at the Hyde Park campus of the University of Chicago registered a maximum wind velocity of only 28 mph at the time the boat foundered; however, a Daily News newsreel motion picture cameraman provided film he took at Municipal Pier as the storm struck, film which showed ferocious wind gusts hurling ticket booths across the pier and smashing lights. The most revealing testimony came from another excursion boat captain, the popular Fred Weimer of the Chicago 215307. Weimer claimed that in 1919 he had considered buying the Favorite from Phil Kegel, but thought the vessel, with its high upper deck, too unstable. Testimony from a former bookkeeper at the late Gilbert Anderson's shipyard indirectly corroborated Weimer's opinion of the Favorite. August Maercke stated that the Favorite had been designed as a single- deck boat, but just prior to launching Phil Kegel decided to have Anderson add the other deck to increase its passenger capacity.
A Lakefront Curiosity
Figure 16. The curious inspect the Favorite at the Randolph Street slip two days after her sinking , across from the Columbia Yacht Club, the floating clubhouse of which can be seen to the left. William Lafferty Collection.
The general conclusion of the inquiry indicated that the disaster was, in essence, an unfortunate act of nature, possibly exacerbated by potential instability within the boat's design, with Olson and his crew exonerated. However, the Steamboat Inspection Service was indirectly implicated itself in the foundering of the Favorite since the Service exempted craft of under fifteen net tons, like the Favorite, from a wide range of stability and safety requirements, requirements which, had they been enforced for the Favorite, might have saved lives or even averted the tragedy. To add to the Service's embarrassment, its inspectors had surveyed the Favorite just sixteen days before she sank, finding her perfectly fit. Meanwhile, the Favorite laid notorious and dejected at Randolph Street while insurance litigation continued. "Beef" Olson, distraught over the tragedy which had struck his boat, vowed never again to sail the Favorite, partly out of remorse and partly because the vessel had, understandably, become a pariah among lakefront excursion boats. Olson continued to operate his power cruisers along the lakefront, though, but the Favorite was towed up the North Branch to the boatyard of a friend of Olson, Dan Leander, at Western Avenue. There she laid inactive for over two years until the promise of increased excursion traffic for Chicago's Century of Progress created a demand for suitable boats. According to her official documents, "Beef" Olson, acting as master carpenter, rebuilt the Favorite during the spring of 1930 by removing her onerous upper deck. Ironically, Olson sold her back to her first owner, Phil Kegel, on 28 May 1930, with Kegel renaming her Sunbeam.
With her appearance completely altered, under new ownership and sporting a different name, the former Favorite found her way back into the Chicago excursion trade almost four years after her tragic foundering. Kegel, as he had originally when she was the new Favorite, used the Sunbeam to run fishermen out to the Chicago harbor breakwalls. While the Sunbeam scurried between the foot of Illinois Street and the breakwalls, her former notoriety spelled the end for several of her colleagues. The pretty little venerable Mineral City, found of inferior safety gear and an aging oak hull, was condemned by zealous officials soon after the Favorite sank. Even the Saugatuck, once the largest vessel on the Lincoln Park run, was also condemned, towed out into the lake and set afire in 1931. The infamy of the Favorite may have contributed in part to the decline of the Chicago excursion fleet during the late 1920s, but was hardly responsible for the quick deterioration of the trade during the 1930s. Throughout that decade, with expanded service by the Chicago Surface Lines and, especially, the construction of North and South Lake Shore Drives and the ascendancy of the private automobile, the lakefront excursion boat routes became increasingly redundant. The Favorite, as Sunbeam, serviced the Century of Progress during its 1933-1934 run, calling at the fair's boat landing, now the south- east edge of what has been, until recently, Chicago's lakefront airport, Meigs Field. By the mid- 1930s, though, with the trade's dwindling passenger traffic, coupled with the relatively high age of the trade's predominantly wooden craft and the depressed economy, the end of the Chicago lakefront excursion boat, as it had existed for most of the century, was at hand. The Sunbeam continued for Kegel until it was no longer feasible to operate her. In 1937 the Sunbeam's old Kahlenberg engine was removed at Dan Leander's boatyard; that summer her hull was stripped and set afire to recover residue scrap metal.
Continue to the story of the Mineral City
©1999, William Lafferty
