Large boats on the Chicago River

Before the St. Lawrence Seaway was finished in 1959, boats traveled between the Great Lakes and the ocean (Gulf of Mexico) using the Illinois Waterway. I've already posted about the Marine Angel using the Chicago River in 1953. In comments concerning a Marine Angle posting, Frank Smitty Schmidt provided more examples of ships using the waterway.

Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting
The St Marys Challenger was at one time named the Elton Hoyt II. The vessel was renamed Alex D. Chisholm in 1952 following the launch into the Interlake fleet of a new hull christened Elton Hoyt II.
Here's a picture of the new in 1952 Elton Hoyt II being towed through Joliet on it's way to Chicago. It was built in MD and towed up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and the Illinois Waterway on it's way to the Great Lakes. The pilot house was installed in South Chicago before it went into service.
[Another name for this boat was the Madusa Challenger.]

Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting
The Illinois Waterway opened in the mid 1930's. The St Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959. From the mid 30's until the late 50's, the Chicago River, Illinois Waterway, and Mississippi River was the only connection between the Great Lakes and the oceans of the world.
During WWII, ship building on both coasts were extremely strained, so there were a lot of submarines and smaller ships built on the great lakes and moved to the gulf.
Here's a picture of a smaller ship that was raised on pontoons, tied to a barge, and moved to the gulf for final completion and launch. It just coming up on the Rock Island Railroad Bridge in Joliet. Yes, it would have came down the Chicago River in it's journey.

Jeff Bransky More likely they used the Calumet River and the Sanitary and Ship Canal to bypass the Loop to get to the Illinois River then on to the Mississippi.

Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting
Surprisingly not very often. They were usually taken on the Chicago River. In fact the pictures of the Marine Angel posted were taken in 1953 while it was being moved to the great lakes.

Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting
This is a Gato class sub that was built in Sheboygan, and moved to the gulf on a floating drydock. Quite possibly you would have seen this on the Chicago River during the war.
Dennis DeBruler That is setting in a lock with a small drop in water level. So that one is probably taking the Cal Sag. But I read that one of the few times the swing bridges on the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal were moved was during WWII to pass submarines built in Manitowoc, WI and Grebe mine-sweepers built on the North Branch.

Some comments on a posting concerning the mobility of the Illinois Northern swing bridge (and the other swing bridges on the CS&SC).
Ramon Rhodes Anthony Cac the bridge has only been opened a handful of times since it was built around 1902. There never was any machinery installed to open or close the bridge. The same is true for all of the railroad bridges east of the 21st lift bridge west to the bridge at Lemont.

Fred Van Dorpe Ramon Rhodes Thats not true. Other bridges along the Ship and Sanitary Canal like the IC bridge near Kedzie ave. and the 8 track bridge at Ash St. junction are built to be moveable for a reason. There was definitely machinery originally on all the moveable type bridges for them to be opened. Its just been removed long ago. A bridge doesnt get built to be opened for boat traffic "only a handful of times." This article even states that the machinery for opening the various bridges was removed.

https://www.cityofchicago.org/.../Historic_Chicago...

Ramon Rhodes Fred Van Dorpe I wrote a paper on the railroad bridges along the Sanitary Canal. My research indicated that none of the swing bridges were ever motorized. They had to be manually opened. That happened about 7-8 times during WW2 so that minesweepers built up river could reach the Gulf of Mexico without having to go through the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic.

Perhaps the person who wrote the article isn't aware of this. Note that there are no historic photographs anywhere of the swing spans from the CN bridge at Kedzie Avenue all the way down to Lemont open.

I will continue to do more research on this, but I believe that what I posted is the truth.

Ramon Rhodes Fred Van Dorpe I recently found the paper that I wrote on the bridges and to be specific, none of the bridges were built with turning machinery in them. It was a cost-saving measure.

Briefly during World War II, machinery was installed in them, but it was later removed. 1953 was the last time they were opened and I suspect it was probably done manually.

Dennis DeBruler So the Marine Angle going from ocean to Great Lakes service in 1953 was the last time the bridges moved. https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../marine-angel... Update: Grebe Shipyard made three more minesweepers for the Korean War. The last one was shipped in 1954. So the Marine Angle was not the last ship to cause the bridges to swing. http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/.../yachtsmall/grebe.htm