About Steamship William G. Mather
The Steamship William G. Mather is a 618-foot Great Lakes ore carrier, launched 1925, permanently moored at North Coast Harbor as a floating museum. Named for William Gwinn Mather — president of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company — it operated for 55 seasons as a working lake freighter before retirement and preservation in 1987. It is one of only a handful of surviving pre-WWII Great Lakes bulk carriers.
The Ship
A Flagship Career
The Mather was built at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan, and launched in May 1925. She was 618 feet long, 62 feet wide, and had a cargo capacity of roughly 14,000 long tons of iron ore — large for her era, though small by today's standards (modern lake carriers reach 1,013 feet). Her triple-expansion steam engine was converted to oil firing in the 1950s and to modern diesel in the 1970s.
She served as the flagship of the Cleveland-Cliffs Steamship Company fleet for most of her working life, carrying iron ore from Duluth, Two Harbors, and the Marquette Range to the steel mills of the lower Great Lakes. She was the first lake freighter to be equipped with radar (1946) and the first with automated boiler controls (1964).
Preservation
From Fleet to Museum
The Mather was retired from service in 1980 as the Cleveland-Cliffs fleet contracted. She was moored in Cleveland pending disposition — most likely, scrapping — until a preservation group led by the Harbor Heritage Society acquired her in 1987 and began the long work of converting her to a museum ship.
She was opened to the public in 1991 at a berth along the Cuyahoga, and permanently relocated to her current berth at North Coast Harbor adjacent to the Great Lakes Science Center in 2006. The Science Center now operates her as part of its museum complex. Visitors can tour the engine room, the pilothouse, the officers' quarters, and the vast cargo holds.
Nearby on the Shoreline