06/14/2026
On this date 123 years ago, the 306-foot passenger vessel Tashmoo made her maiden voyage, on June 9, 1900.
She would become one of the best known - and most beloved - excursion steamers on the Great Lakes. Indeed, even the New York Times deemed her in 1901 as "Detroit's crack passenger boat."
The Tashmoo was designed by Frank E. Kirby, perhaps best remembered by metro Detroiters for designing the Boblo boats - the Columbia and the Ste. Claire.
Much like the Boblo boats shipped Detroiters off to Boblo Island, the Tashmoo hauled them to Tashmoo Park. The 60-acre park was located in the St. Clair Flats, about 20 miles north of Detroit on Harsens Island, and opened in 1897. The ride from Detroit to the park was a leisurely, relaxing two hours. The Detroit News-Tribune noted: "This western Venice seems to be a spot where tired feet and dusty pavements are no more, but where the people float through liquid streets."
The Tashmoo was equipped with a triple-expansion steam engine and, for its time, could really motor. It was so fast, in fact, that it was nicknamed The White Flyer.
Over her nearly 40-year career, the Tashmoo gave everyone from inventor Henry Ford to President Theodore Roosevelt (in 1902) a lift on the Detroit River. The steamer ran between Detroit and Port Huron, Mich., and made several daily stops at Tashmoo Park while she was in the neighborhood.
On June 18, 1936, the Tashmoo was carrying about 1,400 passengers back to Detroit after an evening of dancing at Sugar Island when she struck a rock and began to take on water. Her crew was able to navigate to the Brunner-Mond Dock in Amherstburg, Ontario, where everyone safely made it off. The Tashmoo was not as lucky, sinking in about 18 feet of water. Initially, it was reported that the Tashmoo's wounds were minor and could be patched up. They were wrong.
The damage proved to be far worse than originally feared. And when a salvage crew came and tried to lift the Tashmoo from the riverbed, it "broke the steamer's back," likely a combination of the hull damage, the weight of the amount of water aboard the vessel and improper bracing and salvage strategy. The Tashmoo was dead.
Wrecking crews tore away at her superstructure about a month later, and her silt-covered hull was pulled by tugs to Boblo Island, where the engines were removed. She then made one final journey, to a River Rouge dry dock to be finished off, her hull cut down for scrap. The Tashmoo faded from memory, just as it had faded from the Great Lakes.
Photo from the Library of Congress
