When you look up and see "Lackawanna" imprinted on the steel overhead the Sicamous' boiler, many locals may naturally assume this piece of the ship has connections to the historic Lakawanna Park on Lakeshore drive.
Built between the years 1931-34, Lakawanna park was an employment project through the city of Penticton. Funded using provincial unemployment grants, the park had several small cabins and barbeques, providing accommodations for both locals and visitors. A contest was started across the school district to find a name for the new park. Student, Thora Forester, won with her entry of "Lakawanna," saying it meant "clear water" in Penticton Syilx.
However, much before the creation of this iconic park exists a different Lackawanna. The unique cast-in labels, located in many different spots above the boiler, are identification markers of the once dominating steel manufacture, the Lackawanna Steel Company.
Lackawanna Steel was a widely influential American steel manufacturing company in the late 19th and early 20th century. Established by the prominent Scranton family in Lackawanna Valley, Pennsylvania, the company provided steel in a wide range of industries across the globe. Being on the brink of the post-industrial period, the Lackawanna steel company was quickly met with struggles. Steel manufacturing was a new concept to the United States and production was often a bust. Railway transport fees took their own chunk of the already limited profit and many said the company would fail. The status of the influential Scranton family, however, left them untouchable. They toppled over their biggest barrier in 1853, when the Scranton’s purchased controlling interest over the Delaware & Cobbs Gap and the Western Pennsylvania Railroad. Creating the subordinate Delaware, Lackawanna Western railroad. Lackawanna’s direct involvement in rail relations meant they never had to pay transport fees, while also putting their name on the map for many railways of the era to follow. At the turn of the century, Lackawanna steel made the make-or-break decision to move plants. The new location was right on the skirts of Lake Erie and had both land and water access. The Scranton brothers chose well as the coal rich land of Pennsylvania, abundance of iron ore surrounding Lake Superior and the easy access to water transportation routes was the perfect recipe for success.
The Town in which the company settled was then changed to Lackawanna, as the company was quintessential in bringing men and money to the outskirts of New York. Because of its proximity to Ontario, as well as connections to North American railways, the Canadian Pacific Railway used steel products from Lackawanna Steel Co. on both their railway and ships, including our very own SS Sicamous.
But, what do the steel markings tell us? Primarily, it shows us where the steel was sourced as well as indication to the year of production. If we compare our mill markings to those of the 1910s, we see they look identical, while steel manufactured from the years before 1898 and that of 1922 onwards, are distinctly different. The Lackawanna Steel Company ran independently from 1840 until 1898, when the company consolidated with some of the biggest names in steel and iron: Illinois Steel Co., Cambria Iron, Minnesota Iron Co., and the American Steel & Wire Company. In 1922, Lackawanna then became a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Company until 1983; All of these changes are present in the various markings!
Today, the most common place to spot remaining mill markings are on train rails or steel bridges and include the company name, weight, year and month of manufacture, and can be found stamped or cast into the steel during production. Markings on exposed steel found on places like our vessel, are significantly rarer to find. For steel used in these cases were typically left blank as to not ruin the façade of luxury, hence why these markings are seen exclusively in the working deck of the ship.
Aboard our vessel, hidden under many layers of paint, are mill markings from two competing steel manufacturers, Lackawanna as well as Illinois Steel Co. Pictured below is an unusual variation of Illinois Steel's marking which features a 2 at the end. This specific print was only used from the years 1910-14, showing us that this steel beam was put in during the S.S Sicamous' construction in 1913.
During manufacturing, the brand name would have been applied to the steel unit on its last run through the rolling mill, where it would then be cut into a pair of roll. Inherently, due to how steel is rolled, the branding will appear at different spacings depending on the size of the roll. On the exposed steel above our boiler, the brand is repeated several times per bar and thus we can assume that these pieces would have been processed from a smaller sized roll or production plant. This Particular marking, looks much like Lackawanna's markings from the 1910s, however the use of a period following the brand was only used in 1913.
Using company published catalogues and cross references to other Lackawanna and Illinois projects, one can learn many things about the steels origins. However, what remains unknown is why our ship would have two separate, and even rival, companies produce the same product.
As the story goes, since the introduction of steel production in North America, Lackawanna was the leading force. With innovative machinery and several plants across the united states, the company grew to global recognition. Meanwhile, the much smaller, Illinois Steel had kept business within its state; that was until Carnegie Steel Co., a name akin to Lackawanna, began manipulating market prices and Illinois Steel was forced to expand their market. This expansion proved successful and it was then, in 1901 that Illinois steel bought controlling rights of the Carnegie and Federal Steel Companies, which then formed into the U.S Steel Company. Following this formation, Lackawanna Steel Co. was swiftly knocked behind the megacorporation, and for the first time ever, did not have the market advantage. Pressures rose on Lackawanna to merge with its partner companies, but chose to run independently. By 1913, the rivalry between the corporations had only grew, and thus makes the appearance of both mill markings somewhat of an anomaly.
When taking into account each individual factor, from the repeated Lackawanna branding marks to the Illinois Co. marking, the Sicamous holds onto a very special piece of history. Rather than finding deep rooted connections to a small local park, we instead found a perfectly preserved story of the American industrial age, hidden in plain sight.
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