HISTORY OF AMERICAN PRESIDENT LINES…

Early History of Oldest Continuously Operating U.S. Steamship Company

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, predecessor of the American President Companies Ltd., was founded in 1848, two years before the transcontinental railroad was completed; its founding at this time provides American President Companies its claim as the oldest continuously operated steamship company in the United States. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company set out to carry mail from the Isthmus of Panama to the Oregon Territory. In 1867 it began the first regular shipping service between the United States and Asia, carrying passengers, cargo, and mail between the western United States, China, and Japan. The company’s wooden ships, weighing 2,500 gross tons, used steam power to drive paddle wheels set amidships; the paddle wheels were augmented by twin square-rigged masts.

In 1921, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was acquired by Dollar Steamship Lines, a company founded in the early 1900s by lumberman Robert Dollar, who established a fleet of steam schooners to carry his lumber from mills in northern California and Oregon to cities and railheads in southern and central California.

Dollar Steamship Lines established around-the-world shipping services in 1925 and expanded those services up until 1938 when, staggering under the combined effects of the Great Depression and debts incurred through building its fleet, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. In 1938 the Federal Maritime Commission arranged a subsidy to keep the company solvent; later that year, the Commission released the company from its debt in return for 90 percent of the Dollar Steamship Lines’ common stock. The services of the Dollar Steamship Lines were considered vital to the United States in light of the rise of fascism in Europe and the Sino-Japanese war in the Far East.

Wartime Government Contracts and Big Changes Through the 1980s

On November 1, 1938, Dollar Steamship Lines’ new board of directors changed its name to American President Lines Ltd.; the name change was due in part to the company’s practice of naming its ships after American presidents. American President Lines’ fleet saw service activity during World War II, as several ships were sold to the U.S. Navy for troop transports and others operated as “Liberty Ships” to transport materiel for the war effort.

After the war the company was involved in a costly and bitter seven-year court battle that resulted in its acquisition in 1952 by Ralph K. Davies, a former executive of Standard Oil of California, who had begun buying shares in American President Lines in 1944. By 1952, Davies owned 11 percent of the outstanding shares of the company, becoming its largest minority shareholder. On October 29, 1952, a group of investors led by Davies outbid two other investor groups, including one led by R. Stanley, a son of Robert Dollar, and paid $18.3 million for the Federal Maritime Commission’s controlling interest in the company. Davies became chairman of American President Lines, a position he held until 1971, and he merged the APL Associates with Natomas Company, a gold-dredging firm that grew to become an oil and gas exploration company and, in 1965, the parent organization of American President Lines.

Cruise Line History – Traveling in Style aboard the AMERICAN PRESIDENT LINES

The second President Hoover was built in 1939 as the Panama for the Panama Lines service from New York, via Haiti, carrying 216 first class passengers and cargo. She was sold to American President Lines in 1957, renamed the President Hoover, and put into service on a Pacific circuit to the Far East from San Francisco. In 1962 the larger President Roosevelt replaced her. For more information on APL please visit their American President Lines website. Our thanks to APL.

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The first class lounge on the President Hoover, 1932. Click image for larger version. Of the many ships belonging to APL and its forebears — from graceful 19th-century steamers to ultramodern containerships — perhaps the most memorable are the art deco masterpieces operated by Dollar Line in the 1930s and the sleek luxury liners launched by APL after World War II. Crowning Achievements With a history of traveling extensively on his own ships on business, it’s no wonder that Robert Dollar commissioned the construction of two of the largest ocean liners ever built in the United States. They were the Presidents Hoover and Coolidge. Old Captain Dollar was awestruck when he boarded the former on August 6, 1931. Of the Hoover he wrote, “The ship is a wonder.” Indeed, the ships were stunning. Each carried 988 passengers and a crew of 324. The plush accommodations and art deco furnishings rivaled the best hotels of the era. And each also boasted outdoor pools, gymnasiums, and phones in every room. The luxury and elegance of these two ships were in stark contrast to the hard times of the Great Depression, which lasted until World War II. The Presidents Cleveland and Wilson. Shuffleboard, Anyone? After World War II, a new generation of Americans was eager to travel in style. In 1947, APL launched the Presidents Cleveland and Wilson, continuing in a tradition begun when the Pacific Mail Steamship Company started carrying passengers in 1867. Designed to carry 550 passengers and a crew of 352, the ships were advertised as “your American hotel abroad.” “Air-conditioned throughout, with swimming pools for every Class, smart shops, theaters, cafe-grill and many other innovations,” the vessels set the standard for seagoing travel. And they took passengers to remarkably unspoiled ports like Alexandria, Colombo, Antigua, Suva, and Penang. Not surprisingly, demand was so high that tourist-class cabins were soon converted in order to accommodate more first-class passengers. [Read more...]