Shenehon Vessel on Lake Superior – Is There a Connection to Shenehon Company?

Some of our clients have reported seeing a 65.5-foot boat named Shenehon in Bayfield, Wisconsin on Lake Superior and wondered about the boat’s story.

The vessel is a converted Tug-Transport (T) boat, built in 1953 by the U.S. Army.  It is now part of a fleet of vessels operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.  The vessel was named in honor of Francis Clinton Shenehon, who was Chief Civilian Engineer of the Great Lakes Survey from 1906-1909 and was Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Minnesota from 1909 to 1917.

Ties to Shenehon Company – There is a connection between this T boat and Shenehon Company. Francis C. Shenehon was an ancestor of the late F.E. “Howard” Shenehon, who in 1929 founded a Minneapolis appraisal firm, which is now known as Shenehon Company.

Below are archive photos of the research vessel, RV Shenehon. The image on the left is from 1972 and the image on the right is from 1965.