Chicago Shipbuilding Co.

The area's greatest shipyard, located in South Chicago, was founded in 1890 as a subsidiary of the Globe Iron Works of Cleveland. By 1900, just after it became part of the American Shipbuilding Co. (also based in Cleveland), the Chicago Ship Building Co. employed 1,200 men and ranked as the leading builder of steel ships on the Great Lakes. It became a subsidiary of The American Ship Building Company in 1898 and a division in 1911 named Amship Chicago. This partnership continued to operate on a relatively small scale through World War II; however it never regained the leading position it had held in the 1890s. After WWI, AmShip operated it as a repair yard but closed it in the 1970s.