The Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Company was a highly respected provider of passenger steamship service on Lake Erie from 1893 to 1938. Thomas F. Newman (1858-1929), the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co.’s agent in Cleveland, recognized the potential for a new Cleveland-to-Buffalo connecting service, but he was rebuked by its Detroit directors for fear of upsetting their relationship with the growing New York Central System railroad. Newton soon took matters into his own hands and founded the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co. in 1893. It purchased older steamers from the D&C Line and ultimately built the large and fast steamers City of Buffalo (1896) and City of Erie (1899) to handle ever-increasing passenger and package freight traffic along its route.
Flush with profits in the early 1900s, the C&B Line set out to eclipse its Detroit-based rival, whose elegant City of Detroit III was launched in 1912 as the largest paddle-wheel steamer ever built for freshwater service. The C&B Line ordered an even larger, four-stacked steamship named SeeandBee. Despite its vast size and magnificent interiors, the enormous newcomer became a white elephant. When a new manager, Phillip J. Swartz (1892-1954), sent the so-called Great Ship Seeandbee out on the lakes as a cruise liner, it was extremely successful. However, profits from the cruise operation could not offset losses from the C&B Line’s regular operations. A catastrophic fire at Cleveland’s Ninth Street Pier in 1938 destroyed City of Buffalo and made further operations impossible. The Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Company ceased to exist by 1939.
Interestingly, SeeandBee served the U.S. Navy during World War II. Converted in 1943, it became an aircraft carrier training vessel. U.S.S. Wolverine trained Navy pilots to operate from floating runway decks on Lake Michigan before they served in the Pacific theater of the war. When the much-altered vessel was scrapped in 1947, it was soon forgotten, a fate that ultimately befell the esteemed Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co. itself.
Bruce Allen Kopytek nurtured a love of history while earning two architecture degrees from the University of Detroit. The Hamtramck, Michigan, native built a 45-year career and designed a number of significant buildings around the world. In retirement, Kopytek launched Editions BK, LLC to publish books on topics that have fascinated him throughout his life, honoring the values his parents instilled, including faith, education, accomplishment, and culture above all else. After writing several books for a publisher, his second self-published work follows the wild success of his Hudson’s: Detroit’s World Famous Department Store, now in its third printing. His wife, Carole, has been his partner in all these endeavors and so much more to boot.
