Ship History

Christened originally as the Peralta, this ferry began service in the fleet of the Key System, a private mass transit company headquartered in Oakland, CA. The Peralta plied the San Francisco Bay between 1926 and 1933, before an arson fire broke out on board on 05/06/1933. The Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSNC) pruchased the usable hull and towed it north to the Lake Washington Shipyards, a World War I-era shipyard located in Houghton, WA, a once-important port town, later absorbed by the City of Kirkland. The Black Ball Line fitted a powerful new engine into the hull, a Busch-Sulzer direct-drive diesel, capable of generating 3,000 hp. Fireproof materials were used on the interior wherever possible. Renamed the "Kalakala," a Chinook name for "fast flying bird,"began its northwest operations for the Black Ball Fleet on 07/03/1935.

Beginning in 1951, the State of WA purchased almost all of the Black Ball Lines' vessels and routes. In 06/1955, the Washington State Ferries (WSF) system designated the Kalakala to sail the Port Angeles to Victoria, BC, route. It also covered the Bremerton-to-Seattle voyage into the 1960s. Over the years, the Kalakala suffered several accidents. The Kalakala's bridge did not have good visibility, and the ship's captain could not see the ship's bow, affecting accidents in 1940, 1943, 1949 and 1966. The Kalakala rammed Seattle's Colman Dock on two occasions, on 09/27/1940 and 08/03/1949, the latter incident closed the facility, a main ferry embarkation point, for six months, (See "Big Ferry's Reversing Gear Fails," Seattle Times, 08/03/1949, p. 1) By the mid-1960s, automobiles had grown larger, and the Kalakala's bow doors had to be retrofitted to enable two lanes of big cars to get on and off. New ships were also entering the WSF fleet, able to travel as fast or faster than the 1935 Moderne ferry and carry more cars with better visibility and more modern safety features. A final straw occurred when the ship rammed the new WSF Seattle Terminal on 02/21/1966, idling it for two months. The Kalakala made until its last WSF voyage on Monday, 10/02/1967.

Robert Ressoff of American Freezerships Company purchased the Kalakala at auction, converting it into a crab-processing factory at Dutch Harbor, AK. It was towed by a Foss tugboat north in 08/1968, where it functioned for two years before being sold to the conglomerate, the W. R. Grace Company, which moved it to a new mooring at Ouzinkie, AK. The trip from Dutch Harbor to Ouzinkie was the last time the ship's 1930s engine was used. In 11/1970, it was relocated to Gibson Cove in Kodiak, AK, where it was beached and supported by a man-made sandbar; here it processed shrimp for W.R. Grace. Two years later, Grace sold the beached hulk to the New England Fish Company, which maintained her for about eight years before going bankrupt. This owner sold the increasingly rusty and ill-maintained ship/factory to the Alaska Food Products Company, which itself filed for Chapter 11 in 1982. The State of AK received the ship in lieu of taxes, and sold her to the City of Kodiak, which marketed it to no avail.

Preservation efforts began to germinate in the 1980s and culminated in the formation of the Kalakala Foundation in 1991. Pete Bevis and others founded the foundation and spent years trying to raise sufficient funding to save the deteriorating vessel. The foundation spent three years squatting on the ship, 1995-1998, trying to get it seaworthy. On 06/24/1998, the Kalakala floated again, and moved to Women's Bay, AK, where additional alterations occurred. During 10-11/1998, the Kalakala was towed to Seattle, where it was moored at the Bell Street Pier on 11/08/1998. Despite widespread popular interest, the City of Seattle and the US Coast Guard, stopped the Kalakala Foundation from staging tours on 07/04/2000, citing safety hazards. Over the course of the next year, the City of Seattle reversed its position on the Kalakala, and became a supporter of Bevis and his foundation. Bevis tried to rally the local business community to join in a restoration effort; for a time, Bevis promoted the idea of using the ship as a floating museum for Art Deco memorabilia. On 03/14/2003, the Kalakala Foundation declared bankruptcy, triggering uncertainty about her future.

An auction on 09/13/2003 attracted some interest from buyers, unfortunately the top two bidders proved insolvent. The third-highest bidder was Steven Rodrigues, who headed a group called "Lost Horizons," that proposed to build the Kalakala into a portside attraction. In its decrepit condition, the City of Seattle wanted it out of Downtown Seattle, and Rodrigues towed the ship to a new berth at Neah Bay, WA, in 03/2004. While in Neah Bay, Rodrigues's company financed repairs to the hull, external surfaces, interior, and a protective paint job. Things looked promising for the moment, until funding for further repairs dried up. The Makah Tribe, who owned land around Neah Bay lost patience with Rodrigues and his firm and asked that the ship be moved out of its harbor. In 09/2004, he relocated it to its final resting place in the Hylebos Waterway, in Tacoma.

An EPA Superfund site, Hylebos Bay was out of the public eye, and was an ideal place to park the failing ship temporarily. During the next four years, Rodrigues could not raise the money needed to keep the Kalakala seaworthy, much less restored. In a statement of 11/17/2008, Rodrigues offered to donate the ship to the State of WA. The state declined the offer. By about 2010, Rodrigues lost control of the ship to Karl Anderson, who owned the site where the Kalakala was moored. Anderson did not want to scrap the ship either, but it became, with its crumbling steel walls and hull. officially considered a hazard to waterway navigation in 2011. The ferry rested here for an additional four years, before Anderson had to decide to demolish and remove the fantastic but neglected hulk.

The ship was parted out for scrap in 01-02/2015. Some of the pieces were bought by the City of Kirkland, which had hoped to use them in artists' installations. As of 05/2019, no final plan by artists had been finalized by city. (See Gabriel Campanario, "A Piece of the Kalakala gazes upon the Seattle skyline as scraps await rebirth," Seattle Times, 05/12/2019, p. E14.)

Alteration

In order to alleviate shaking that plagued the ship, its owners replaced the original propeller with a five-bladed model in 1956. This reduced the tremors considerably.

Demolition

This Streamlined Moderne masterpiece was allowed to rot for years, as public sentiment has not been harnessed effectively to restore the civic landmark. Efforts to preserve the ferry would have to raise large amounts of money, but the ship's value as a symbol along Seattle, WA's waterfront could be tremendous; tourist money would flow to wherever the Kalakala was docked.

No large donor saw the value of maintaining the rusting hulk, and it was scrapped at the docks of the Concrete Technology Corporation in Tacoma during 01-03/2015. Rhine Demolition was the firm dismantling the Kalakala. Many attended a sale in a Tacoma warehouse at 312 140th St. South held on 03/13/2015 for items salvaged from the ship; souvenirs sold out in one hour, suggesting the level of nostalgia the ship held for locals. (See King 5 News, "Pieces of ferry Kalakala sell out in an hour," accessed 04/29/2015)

PCAD id: 17489