The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. Charles Peabody, one of the six founding members, served as president of the company from its creation until 1912. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike Gold Rush

Klondike Gold Rush

The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...

 of 1897. In 1898, the Puget Sound Navigation Company was formed as a subsidiary, serving as means of putting the Alaska Steamship Company's more obsolete vessels to use in the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 routes. The Alaska Steamship Company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909. The Alaska Steamship Company retained its name through the merger, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. The company greatly benefitted from the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which forced two Canadian shipping companies out of the Alaska market.

The company's rapidly growing prominence in the shipping industry continued in 1930 when it purchased the Pacific Steamship Company. The federal government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 took control of the company's fleet of fifteen vessels during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. After World War II, the Alaska Steamship Company was slowly driven out of business due to the end of federal subsidies, rising fuel and labor costs, and new competition from the trucking industry

Trucking industry in the United States

The trucking industry involves the transport and distribution of commercial and industrial goods using commercial motor vehicles . In this case, CMVs are most often trucks; usually semi trucks, box trucks, or dump trucks...

 and cargo airlines. In an effort to reduce costs, the Alaska Steamship company started implementing tugs, barges, and container ship

Container ship

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...

s. These allowed for smaller crews, faster loading and unloading, and less damage to the cargo. Unable to compete with faster, cheaper air service, the company discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954, though by then it had established itself within the container ship industry. Despite these efforts, the Alaska Steamship Company shut down in January 1971.

Shipwrecks

While most of the ships in the Alaska Steamship Company's fleet ended up being sold, scrapped

Ship breaking

Ship breaking or ship demolition is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for scrap recycling. Most ships have a lifespan of a few decades before there is so much wear that refitting and repair becomes uneconomical. Ship breaking allows materials from the ship, especially...

, or repurposed, several of the ships ended their careers as wrecks:, purchased in 1898, wrecked on the coast of British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 in 1909.

• Olympia, acquired by merger in 1909, ran aground on Bligh Reef
  Bligh Reef
  Bligh Reef, sometimes known as Bligh Island Reef, is a reef off the coast of Bligh Island in Prince William Sound, Alaska. This was the location of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. After the incident, US Code 33 § 2733 mandated the operation of an automated navigation light to prevent future...
  
   on 10 December 1910.
• Seward, acquired by merger in 1909, was captured and sunk by U-52
  SM U-52
  |SM U-52 was one of the 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy in World War I.U-52 was engaged in the naval warfare and took part in the First Battle of the Atlantic....
  
   on 7 April 1917.
• Mariposa, purchased in 1912, sank after hitting Straits Island Reef on 18 December 1917.
• Dirigo, built in 1898, sank on 16 November 1918 on a voyage from Cordova
  Cordova, Alaska
  As of the census of 2000, there were 2,454 people, 958 households, and 597 families residing in the city. The population density was 40.0 per square mile . There are 1,099 housing units at an average density of 17.9 per square mile...
  
   to Seattle.
• Alaska, built in 1889, was stranded and sank at Blunt's Reef off of California on 6 August 1921.
• Kennecott, built in 1921, wrecked at Hunters Point in 1923.
• Aleutian, built in 1898, sank off of Kodiak Island
  Kodiak Island
  Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the United States and the 80th largest island in the world, with an...
  
   on 26 May 1929.
• Curaçao, built in 1895, caught fire and later sank on 13 July 1940.
• Latouche, built in 1910, was captured by the Japanese navy in 1942 and was sunk by a US air attack on 21 October 1944.
• Yukon, purchased in 1923, ran aground in Johnstone Bay on 4 February 1946.
• Redondo, purchased in 1915, sunk at Richmond, California
  Richmond, California
  Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
  
   in 1948.
• Oduna, purchased in 1964, wrecked at Unimak Island
  Unimak Island
  Unimak Island is the largest island in the Aleutian Islands chain of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the easternmost island in the Aleutians and, with an area of 1,571.41 mi² , the ninth largest island in the United States and the 134th largest island in the world. It is home to Mount...
  
  on 26 November 1965.