Qualla: McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company

McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company (Life time: 1919), Public domain. The USS Lakemoor never reached its first port of call. Built at 110 Spring Street in Duluth, Minnesota, the coal ship slid into the St. Louis River Estuary in early 1918, navigated the Great Lakes, threaded the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic, and was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea off Corsewall Lighthouse, Scotland, on April 11 of that year. All 46 crew members were lost. The Lakemoor was only the second hull completed at the McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company, a sprawling wartime shipyard founded by Alexander McDougall in 1917 on the western shore of Lake Superior. That a vessel built in the landlocked heart of a continent could meet its end in European waters speaks to the extraordinary ambition of the Twin Ports shipbuilding industry -- and to the ferocious appetite of global conflict.

Image: McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company (Life time: 1919) | Public domain

McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company: The Whaleback Dreamer

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Henry Wellge (1850–1917), Public domain. Alexander McDougall was born in Scotland in 1845 and arrived on the Great Lakes as a young man, working the decks of sailing ships and steamers. By 1887, he had designed something entirely new: the whaleback barge, a rounded-hull vessel that rode low in the water and shed waves o...

Image: Henry Wellge (1850–1917) | Public domain

McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company: A Town Built to Build Ships

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin S. O'Brien, Public domain. When World War I created an urgent demand for cargo and naval vessels, McDougall opened his second shipyard in 1917, six miles west of the first, on the St. Louis River Estuary. He did not merely build a shipyard -- he built a city. The company town of Riverside sprang up alongsi...

Image: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin S. O'Brien | Public domain

McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company: Ships for the Wars of the World

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company (Life time: 1918), Public domain. The yard's output was staggering. During World War I, McDougall Duluth launched coal ships, cargo vessels, oiler tankers, and Emergency Fleet ships. The USS Lake Portage was torpedoed off Audierne, France, in August 1918. Cargo ships bearing the names of American cities -- Fargo,...

Image: McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company (Life time: 1918) | Public domain

McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company: What the Water Remembers

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit New York State Museum, Public domain. Today the site at 110 Spring Street is the Spirit Lake Marina, also called the West Duluth Marina, offering docks and berths for recreational boats on the river and lake. Only two buildings remain from the original shipyard campus of more than two dozen structures. The Riverside ...

Image: New York State Museum | Public domain