![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Each displaced 1,430 tons and measured 304 feet in length. Named Allentown, Bath, Machias, and Sandusky, the frigates were completed in 19. While the tugs were still under construction, the company was given a contract to build four anti-submarine frigates. Each displaced 1,117 gross tons and was 194 feet long. He had the guts to go ahead and build a shipyard even when they told him it was impossible.”Īll eight tugs were completed by 1943. Wisconsin Governor Julius Heil attended the launch ceremony and told the guests, “Ben Froemming didn’t have to build ships to make a living, but he is building them because his country needs them. The initial order was for eight seagoing tugs, the first of which was launched on July 21, 1942. The shipyard was readied for operation in sixty days. To establish its shipyard, the company acquired twelve acres along the Kinnickinnic River, just north of Beecher Street and 1st Street. While the firm had no shipbuilding experience, it bid for and obtained millions of dollars of contracts from the United States Maritime Commission. ![]() In 1941, Ben Froemming answered an appeal from Milwaukee’s mayor Carl Zeidler to bring back shipbuilding to the City. By the early 1940s, the company had grown into an engineering construction company, building roads in Texas, bridges in Pennsylvania and Mississippi, a new airport for the Panama Canal project, and various tunnels in the Midwest. He was only eighteen at the time, but the small firm’s construction expertise grew quickly. Ben, who was born Bernhard Arthur Froemming, started the firm to specialize in city sidewalk replacement and similar masonry jobs. And during the Second World War, Froemming Brothers established a shipyard in Bay View.įroemming Brothers was founded in 1919 by Ben Froemming and his brothers Walter and Herbert. There were notable exceptions during First World War, thirteen boats were launched in Milwaukee by Fabricated Ship, a subsidiary of Lakeside Bridge and Steel, and four wooden submarine chasers were built by the Great Lakes Boat Company. Shipbuilders in the Lake Erie ports were closer to the Pittsburgh steel district. As shipbuilding moved away from wooden hulls and toward larger vessels of iron plate and eventually steel, Milwaukee’s wooden shipbuilders were no longer able to meet the market demands. ![]()
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