Georgian Bay Line

The Georgian Bay Line is the popular name of the Chicago, Duluth and Georgian Bay Transit Company. From 1913 until 1967, the Georgian Bay Line (GBL) provided transit service and cruise voyages to passengers on North America's Great Lakes.

The company was founded by Robert Chenault Davis, who for many years was employed by the Goodrich Line in Chicago. Mr. Davis envisioned a fleet of ships dedicated exclusively to passengers rather than the passenger and freight ships that plied the Great Lakes. The initial board consisted of Mr. Davis and four other Chicagoans: Charles Bour of President Northern Railways Advertising Company; Joseph M. Wile of Wile, Loeb & Gutman, Insurance; Dr. James Whitney Hall of the Chicago Railways Company; and Sam G. Goss, Vice President of Goss Printing Press Company.

The company was capitalized initially with $250,000 in preferred stock from about 35 investors located mostly in Chicago and Detroit.

The Georgian Bay Line began operation in 1913 with the SS North American, which was launched on January 16, 1913. Due to a very profitable first season, the company launched the SS South American on February 21, 1914. Built of steel, these ships were almost sister ships. The North American had an overall length of 280 feet (85 m) while the South American was 321 feet. They carried passengers between Chicago, Mackinac Island, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Duluth, Georgian Bay, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo, and sometimes intermediate ports. In the 1940s, the Georgian Bay Line acquired a third vessel, SS Alabama, a refugee from the bankrupt Goodrich Transit Company where Mr. Davis had begun his career. The three ships tied up at the foot of 16th Street in Holland, Michigan, each winter and until they were permanently assigned elsewhere.

Up until World War II vessels like those operated by the Georgian Bay Line were an essential part of the transportation infrastructure of the Great Lakes. The line sold large quantities of point-to-point tickets to revenue passengers who paid publicly tariffed rates to be moved from one port to another. After the war, with increasingly inexpensive motor fuel and reliable, paved roads, point-to-point passenger volume declined and the Georgian Bay Line shifted its emphasis to the cruise ship trade.

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