The City of Mackinac II was an overnight passenger steamer operated by the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. (D&C). Passengers would climb aboard in the afternoon, eat dinner and spend the night in a cabin, then wake up at their destination the following day. In an era before airplane travel or highways, these "floating hotels" were a fast and often luxurious way to travel.

The City of Mackinac II and her sister ship, the City of Alpena II, were built to deal with the increased demand for getting to and from Michigan's many remote lumber and mining towns that were far from Detroit. In addition to the 400 passengers she could carry, there was also room for cargo, a key aspect of D&C's business model in an era when there weren't highways or adequate roads to get to remote towns across the state. These two sidewheel paddle steamers, like the rest of the D&C fleet, were designed by revered naval architect Frank E. Kirby with interiors by Louis Keil.

"They filled the place which automobiles hold today," John Newton Poole, a Detroit engineer and maritime historian, told the Free Press for a June 28, 1936, story. "It didn't seem as though their day could ever pass. Everyone tried to make at least one trip a year on them."

We are including this next bit to hopefully clear up what is a really confusing game of musical chairs involving the names of D&C steamers. In 1883, D&C brought into service a new boat called the City of Mackinac. This vessel would be considered the City of Mackinac (I), though D&C hadn't started using Roman numerals yet to distinguish them from one another. This 1883 City of Mackinac joined the first City of Alpena, which had been brought out in 1880 as the first City of Cleveland but renamed to the City of Alpena in 1885 in anticipation of a new City of Cleveland entering service the following year. Still with us? Because it doesn't get any less confusing from here.

In order to keep up with advances in technology and to have the latest and greatest passenger boats on the lakes, D&C kept ordering new passenger liners and selling off older ones but slapping those previously used names on the latest model. After the 1892 sailing season, D&C sold the City of Alpena (I) and City of Mackinac (I) to the newly formed Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co., because it was replacing them both with new boats of the same name for the next year. The City of Alpena (I)/City of Cleveland (I) was renamed by C&B as the State of Ohio; the City of Mackinac (I) became the State of New York.

All of this led to the boat in question here being launched as the City of Mackinac (without the Roman numeral at that time) on May 2, 1893, at the Detroit Dry Dock Co. in Wyandotte, Mich., as Hull No. 116.

After being outfitted with Keil's elaborate interiors and amenities, she was enrolled at Detroit on Aug. 16, 1893, by what was then called the Detroit & Cleveland Steam Navigation Co. (The firm changed its name to the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. in 1898.)

The City of Mackinac was 266 feet long and had two decks. Her coal-fired boilers powered a vertical beam engine that propelled the steel-hulled vessel through the Lakes at 2,400 indicated horsepower. For the most part, she and the City of Alpena ran opposite runs; when one was in Detroit, the other was at Mackinac Island and vice versa. She also had routes to Port Huron, Harbor Beach, Alpena, Cheboygan and Toledo, Ohio.

D&C was a partner, along with a pair of railroad companies, in building the Grand Hotel, which has operated on Mackinac Island since 1888.

"For years, they ran to Mackinac, and their initial appearance each spring became an event in the snow-locked villages of Northern Michigan," the Detroit Free Press wrote June 28, 1936, of the City of Alpena II and City of Mackinac II.

In 1912, to fall in line with its naming convention and perhaps to keep people from thinking they were sailing on out-of-date boats built years earlier, the City of Mackinac of 1893 was renamed the City of Mackinac II. The City of Alpena of 1893 became the City of Alpena II.

World War I increased traffic on D&C's Lake Erie routes in terms of freight, but recreational business was way down and didn't return to previous levels after the conflict was over. This led D&C to bench the City of Mackinac II during the 1920 and '21 seasons and completely abandon service to Mackinac Island in 1922. This, in turn, led D&C to sell the City of Mackinac II and City of Alpena II on sold Dec. 22, 1921, to the Graham & Morton Transportation Co. of Chicago for passenger service on Lake Michigan.

Graham & Morton renamed the City of Mackinac II to the City of Holland the following year. The City of Alpena II was rechristened the City of Saugatuck.

Graham & Morton was merged into its competitor the Goodrich Transit Co. of Chicago in 1925, but that firm went bust in 1933 amid the throes of the Great Depression. Folks just weren't able to afford vacations and business travel was down. (To illustrate this point, D&C lost about two-thirds of its revenue between 1929 and 1932 - and these coal-gobbling passenger steamers required the same costs to operate whether they were full or mostly empty.) The Graham & Morton fleet, including the City of Holland, was laid up at Chicago and were seized by creditors through the Michigan Trust Co.

The Holland and Saugatuck were sold at a marshal's sale, along with the steamers City of Benton Harbor and City of St. Joseph, for $16,250 in December 1935 at Chicago, just $378,000 in 2025 valuation for the four.

The buyer was Abraham Derinsky Inc. of Grand Rapids, jointly with the Woodmere Scrap Iron & Metal Co. of Detroit. It was announced that the passenger liners were to be stripped of their cabins and converted into barges for the wood pulp trade on Lake Michigan in the summer of 1936.

"Hearing that they are gone will seem like losing old friends to many Michigan residents," Poole told the Free Press after the sale.

Though the City of Saugatuck and City of St. Joseph were indeed converted into barges, it isn't clear whether the same fate befell the City of Holland.

Either way, the City of Holland was scrapped at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., in 1940.