Rainer,

Thank you. Two excellent sources to be sure.

I found a site linking Colabee Steamship Co and American Range Lines together as plaintiffs in a lawsuit. In fact when you Google "Colabee SS Co" you get nearly two pages of lawsuits (some duplicates) and nothing else.

Illinois Atlantic Corp was a good clue. It led to the following site that includes a nice picture of Colabee (11th picture down):
[www.abouthegreatlakes.com]

Apparently she was purchased by Illinois Atlantic Corp in May of 1940 to transport newsprint from the Great Lakes to New York. There were a mess of companies involved including Quebec and Ontario Transportation Company, a subsidiary of the Ontario Paper Company which itself was a subsidiary of the Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The Michigan Atlantic Corporation was also involved.

Ironically they had purchased the American vessel Colabee to replace Canadian vessels that were requisitioned for the war effort, and then she was requisitioned in turn by the Americans when they entered the war (or were about to).

Perhaps that answers the question of why she wasn't renamed to American-Hawaiian standards. She was a loaner.

I wasn't able to find a link between Illinois Atlantic corp and American-Hawaiian though. Do you have any more on that?

I'll send Roger Haworth a note as well to see if he has anything else.

Regards,

Eric Stone
www.ssarkansan.com