Axe falls on legendary gatelifter Paul Bunyan
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gatelifter Paul Bunyan, named after the legendary superhuman lumberjack of Midwest folklore, has been retired and sold to a private company, likely MCM Marine, working on the new Soo Lock project. Her lifting equipment was removed over the past winter.
The custom barge, originally fabricated in Muskegon, Michigan, at a cost of more than $1 million when commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1945, boasted a lift capability of more than 300 tons. Operators used the 150-foot long, 65-foot wide, 444-ton brute to pluck tugboats out of the St. Marys River and lug around 90,000 pound stop logs that allow dry docking and winterization of the Soo Locks canals.
Her 74,000-pound boom was attached to supporting A-legs of the derrick. Her six huge ballast tanks held 157 tons of water each and kept the barge balanced as it lifted up to 312 tons (an entire tugboat or a gate from the Soo Locks) out of the water. The Bunyan breezed through its lifting tests in June 1945 and, towed by a 125-ton tug, headed north to the Soo Locks at 7 mph at 4 p.m. on July 20, 1945.
The Paul Bunyan was still operational but needed expensive repairs. She and another Corps vessel, the tug Fairchild, were sold earlier this year for $43,000 and $10,000 respectively. Fairchild was built in 1953 by the Roamer Boat Co. as the ST-2163 for the U.S. Army. In 1961 she was transferred to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and renamed Cleveland. She was renamed Fairchild in the early 1970s. Fairchild, which had been inactive for several years, was scrapped in Sault Ste. Marie early this year, although her superstructure and stack could still be seen at a local junk yard in early August.
Roger LeLievre / Via Soo Locks Visitor Center Association summer newsletter
