When Ships Ruled the Lakes The D&C Navigation Legacy

Before the freeways, before commercial flights, lake steamers were the gateway to the Midwest.

In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we chart the rise and fall of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company—one of the Great Lakes' most iconic passenger lines. From grand vessels like the City of Detroit III and Greater Detroit, to the six-day cruises connecting Detroit, Cleveland, and Put-in-Bay, the D&C Line helped shape the travel culture of an industrializing Michigan.

With luxury cabins, promenade decks, and sweeping lake views, these ships were floating cities—and they carried millions across Lake Erie and Huron.

We bring you stories from passengers, stewards, and engineers, along with archival details and artifacts from Detroit's maritime past. Find out how this once-dominant fleet faded into history with the rise of the automobile—and what still remains today. This is the legacy of D&C Navigation—when ships ruled the lakes, and the end of the road was only the beginning.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Imagine you're in Detroit in July 1930.

(00:04):
On the city's steamwarf at the foot of Wayne Street, the new side wheeler city of Detroit
three groans as it settles deeper in the water.
A crowd gathers for her maiden voyage to Cleveland.
Steam ships like this one and her sister ship City of Cleveland III were the pride of the
Detroit and Cleveland navigation company, a great lakes line that for decades linked

(00:26):
Michigan to Ohio and beyond.
Sixty-three years of service boasts the newspaper headline for the 1931 season.
Indeed, since the company's post-civil war beginnings, generations of Michiganders
had relied on the D and C line.
Families boarded for weekend trips to put in Bay Island or long haul crossings to Buffalo.

(00:49):
Railroad offices advertised their trips alongside the ships.
By the early 1900s, Detroit and Cleveland ran an impressive fleet of side-wheelers.
There was the City of Detroit 1889, renamed City of Detroit II after 1911 and eventually
rebuilt into the excursion boat "Good Time" in 1924.

(01:11):
Its Lake Erie counterpart was the City of Cleveland built in 1880, later renamed Alpenna
and then the State of Ohio, serving until 1929.
A second City of Cleveland joined the fleet in 1886, later St. Ignace and finally Keystone,
which was destroyed by fire in 1932.
These paddle-wheelers were more than ships, they were floating palaces.

(01:35):
Their upper deck sparkled with varnished wood and brass.
Children leaned over the railing to wave at fairies while gamblers hid in the smoke-filled
saloon.
One Detroit passenger remembered hurrying aboard.
We dined in the Grand Salon, danced in the promenade, and by morning Detroit was far behind
us, a testament to the romance of overnight travel.

(01:58):
In 1924, DNC launched its largest steamer ever, the Greater Detroit, over 6,000 tons of
steel and teak, with Broadway-style neon signs and a beer gardenaft.
People came to witness the christening and to watch her thunder into the river.
For a decade she was the showpiece of the fleet.

(02:20):
With the 1930s brought new challenges.
The Great Depression led to a decline in travel and cars began to dominate Michigan roads.
The DNC line trimmed its schedules.
Its proud new ship still sailed the lakes, but by World War II the business was fading.
The excursion steamer Good Time X City of Detroit II was retired in 1941 and the city's

(02:44):
downtown depots started to empty.
After 1945 there was simply less demand for overnight lake service.
The city of Cleveland III limped on until 1950 when she was sold for scrap only to sink in
a storm off Pennsylvania on her way to the breakers.
The city of Detroit III made her final Detroit run in 1954 and by 1956 her cabins had been

(03:11):
torn out and the paddle wheels were sold for scrap.
In a child running alongside the rails as the Detroit III slipped into the Detroit River,
the last time a large passenger side wheeler ever left this dock.
By then the roar of car engines had drowned out the ship's whistle.
Today the DNC navigation company lives on in memory.

(03:36):
Maritime historians have scoured old company logs and museum archives to piece together
its story.
We know now that the proud side wheelers of the DNC were the last of their kind on these
waters.
And though today's travelers race between Detroit and Cleveland on freeways, the line's
century of service is a testament to Michigan's maritime heritage.

(04:00):
On Bel Isle the Dawson Great Lakes Museum keeps a physical memory, the gothic room from
the city of Detroit III, painstakingly reassembled from the dismantled steamer.
The property polished panel there, whispers, "Welcome aboard."
For many Michiganders those words once meant more than a journey.

(04:20):
They meant an adventure.
The Detroit and Cleveland navigation company was more than a fairy line.
It was a symbol of an era when, end of the road, meant boarding a steamship, not a highway.
And though its last ship sailed away over half a century ago, that apical crossing of
Great Lakes waters remains etched in Michigan's story, as vivid as a steamer's wake under

(04:44):
a summer sun.