Fun Facts Stories and the Stuff of Legend
A Brief history of the G.M. Standifer Wooden Shipyard at the Port of Vancouver
He’s the Guy.
He’s the Guy.
GUY M. STANDIFER, that is. Founder of the G.M. Standifer Construction Corporation.
Born in Texas, 1886, shipbuilding is in this guy’s wheelhouse. He logs serious time in the lumber and railroad business before erecting a shipyard in Astoria, Oregon at the age of 29. Living with his wife in Portland’s Mallory Hotel, he lands a government contract in 1918 to build wood cargo ships for WWI. Standifer Wood Shipyard is born. “Surely there is a new day for Vancouver,” he tells the Vancouver Weekly Columbian. “On the river they are building thousands of feet of dock. Many men are now at work and hundreds more will be employed there within a short time.”
“Let’s build a bridge to France” is the rallying cry of the U.S. Emergency Fleet. Here, more than 450 workers dive in, crafting ten vessels and jump-starting the Port of Vancouver.
In the end, the national effort consumes enough wood for a bridge 26 feet wide and 1 inch thick across the Atlantic.
Ships built here are “Ferris” type: 270 feet long, coal-fired, “three-island” cargo ships of 3,500 deadweight tons. They are among the last and largest ever constructed in the ancient art of wooden shipbuilding.
You need a steady string of “oakum” fiber to keep these babies dry. When four men on her work crew fail to appear for a shift, Mrs. Genevieve Underwood steps up to man their spinning machines—for the sake of her boys overseas. “It has been a rather hard day,” she tells National Geographic. “But I am all right and there is enough oakum on hand.”
Mayor G. R. Percival’s bubbly granddaughter, Carol, christens the first ship S. S. KINEO. Nine sister ships quickly follow.
Standifer’s Wood Shipyard, along with his 1918 Steel Shipyard downstream, plus Henry Kaiser’s WWII Liberty Ship yard upstream, propel the Port to global commerce. Down through the decades, everything from prunes to Porsches pass this way.
To visit the Benzonia, Moosabee, and other Standiferians today, dip a paddle in the Mallows Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Charles County, Maryland.
Credit: Don Shomette
This exhibit wouldn’t exist without the help of a truly great crew.
Port of Vancouver
Clark County Historical Museum
Washington State Archives
Oregon Historical Society
Matt Oftedahl
Vesta Hospitality
Patrick J. Klinger
August 30, 1948–April 20, 2022
Lifelong citizen, veteran, and visionary businessman of Vancouver who managed the concept, research and execution of this project.
The backwall of our historic display is shiplap milled from actual shipyard piling posts pulled from this site. The porthole and lanterns are authentic marine salvage from the shipyard era. Strands of oakum (loosely woven jute) are still used today for caulking seams in wooden boats and historical replicas.
