Langell Shipyard Walking Tour
Get a QR Code for this tour
Description
This ¼ mile, nineteen-stop walking tour highlights Simon Langell’s prime role in St. Clair’s “heady” days of wooden shipbuilding. Langell came to St. Clair in 1860 to build wooden freighters for the growing Great Lakes shipping industry. Initially, Simon Langell built boats (locals refer to Great Lakes freighters as “boats”) on the St. Clair River south of the mouth of the Pine River. In 1872 he moved his shipyard to the Pine River where a slower current and deeper water shoreline made side-launching boats much easier. By 1900, Langell had built 30 boats ranging from 40 to 269 ft. long. Data and stories of 17 of those boats are shared on the walking tour.