Pere Marquette Carferries

At the turn of the 20th century, Captain James W. Martin looked at the challenge of crosslake shipping and saw an opportunity no one else had seized. His idea, loading entire railroad cars onto a ferry and sailing them across Lake Michigan, was audacious, technically complex, and transformatively successful.

The Pere Marquette Railroad Car Ferries exhibit tells the full story of how this innovation reshaped commerce across the Midwest, making Ludington the car ferry capital of the Great Lakes. It traces the development of the fleet, the engineering challenges overcome, and the economic impact on Mason County and the surrounding region.

Today, the SS Badger, the last coal-fired passenger steamship operating in the United States, continues this tradition from Ludington’s harbor, a living link to the car ferry era this exhibit so vividly chronicles.