Business Ups and Downs
Eagle Harbor offered more level ground and a gentler slope adjacent to the shore but the company still moved nearly 5,000 cubic yards of dirt and dredged the harbor. These adjustments to the landscape allowed them to build five-masted schooners at the site. The schooners had a unique design that allowed them to be loaded through the bow or stern and from the deck. The company also planned to use the enlarged yard to build steel-hulled ships but that would not happen until 1939, when the shipyard was under different ownership.
The company's fortunes rose and fell in its new location. After a little over a decade in Winslow, Hall sold the business to D. W. Hartzell, who renamed it Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company. Once the Great Depression of the 1930s hit, few jobs remained in the shipyard and in 1931 it suffered a fire. In 1934 the yard was improved and the company was able to survive the Depression. During World War II workers built minesweepers and repaired damaged ships for the military. Workers from Seattle and from the island were hired and the workforce increased to 2,300.
In 1943 the company was sold again, and became Commercial Ship Repair of Winslow. After the war, with the loss of defense work, employment dropped off considerably, and the workforce fell to 50. In 1959 the yard closed and the property was split into a marina, a private development, and a Washington State Ferries maintenance facility.
