Every regular reader of THE TRIBUNE and every one of the additional thousands directly identified with or indirectly interested in the merchant marine of the great lakes, into whose hands this issue will fall, will, we are confident, share our hearty gratification at the splendid showing of the commerce of the inland which is this morning presented. An equal confidence is felt that every reader will agree with us in the belief that no such comprehensive review of lake commerce was ever before printed in a newspaper.

The TRIBUNE's exhibit of the lake marine presents not only a review of the business at all the principal ports for the last year, in all its branches including the building of ships and construction of marine engines and boilers, together with the tonnage of the new vessels and careful consideration of the outlook in the shipping and freight carrying business, but contains also the completest history of shipping on the lakes ever published, covering the entire period of 200 years since the first vessel was built.

Nothing need be said of the immense labor involved in the preparation of a review so far-reaching and exhaustive. The TRIBUNE claims merely the virtue of repetitious evidence in such efforts as this of its expressed determination to leave no stroke of enterprise untried in the service of its readers. The pleasure of presenting this magnificent exhibit of the lake marine is secondary only to that experienced from the fact that the statement shows a largely increased tonnage on the lakes, with prospects brightening in all branches of the traffic.

Return to Home Port

For an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwrecks Research see the site maintained by David Swayze.

Hundreds of other articles from the Detroit Tribune transcribed by Dave Swayze and others can be searched on the Newspaper Transcriptions section of this site.