Category:Alaska (ship, 1871)

Four steamers were built for the Evans' in 1871 by the King Iron Works. The fourth was ALASKA, 212.6 x 32.0 x 13.9, 1288.06 Gross, 1147.92 Net, whose hull was almost exactly the same as INDIA, CHINA and JAPAN, but whose superstructure differed rather substantially in that ALASKA was completed as a package freighter, with no passenger accommodations. ALASKA, just like the passenger "triplets", was registered at Erie, Pennsylvania.

Her sister ships were the Anchor Line "triplets" INDIA, CHINA and JAPAN, combination passenger and package freight steamers built for Lake service. JAPAN and her two sister ships were all completed during 1871, and they were then placed in service by E. T. Evans and his son, J. C. Evans, of Buffalo. In the 1860s, they had operated Evans' Buffalo, Milwaukee and Chicago Line, and also Evans' Atlantic, Duluth and Pacific Lake Company. Their operations had been absorbed into the Erie and Western Transportation Company, which became the lake steamship subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and which came to be known as the Anchor Line. http://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/documents/scanner/17/06/default.asp?ID=c7