Altogether, the U.S. built 296 wooden steamships. By the end of the war, they were obsolete — too small to economically carry cargo during peacetime. The problem was: what to do with a fleet of useless ships?
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There were still more than 200 ships left, when a group of California lawyers made an offer: $750,000 for the lot of them. That was about the same as it cost to build just one.
The lawyers created a salvage company, and towed the boats up the Potomac, to a shipyard in Alexandria, Va., where they were picked over for valuable metals. Now the problem was: What to do with the worthless wooden hulls?
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The salvaging and burning of emergency fleet ships would continue off and on for decades. During the Great Depression, local residents descended on the shipwrecks to remove what scrap they could.
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Now, Mallows Bay and its shipwrecks have received official protection from the federal government. As of September, the area is a national marine sanctuary, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
From the article:
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