After 88 years, it's still a mystery.

THE S.S. ALABAMA (left) is seen docked about 60 years ago at the Rennie Oil Company pier in Greilickville. The South American (right) and North American also docked there on occasion.

Traverse City businessman Ralph Anderson had taken the S.S.Alabama from Chicago to Muskegon, concluding a business trip, but never got off the boat.

He was proprietor of the Anderson Funeral Home, which was routinely advertised in the Enterprise. Advertisements pictured a horse-drawn hearse and quaintly boasted of “robes for gents, ladies and children.”

“Grim tragedy cannot but be associated with the mysterious disappearance of Ralph A. Anderson, the Record-Eagle reported in its edition of June 13, 1919. Since Anderson was a prominent local businessman, his disappearance was Page One news.

“The ship was searched from stem to stern,” says Elmwood Township resident Curt Frook, grandson of Anderson. “Not the slightest clue was ever found.”

Nor has there been one ever since – it’s the coldest of cold cases.

Anderson, who was only 38 years old, had taken over and operated a “pioneer” family business. Surviving were his widow and two young children, Bobby and Adele (Frook’s mother).

“There was endless speculation about grandfather, but we’ll apparently never know what became of him,” concluded Frook.

Last week, local media reported the docking of a small cruise ship, Spirit of Nantucket, at the Maritime Academy Pier.

“It’s the first time in about 40 years a cruise ship has docked in Traverse City,” it was announced.

Technically, that’s not quite correct, and it was actually much longer than that – for Traverse City, that is.

But it was about 40 years earlier that the last cruise ship had docked at Greilickville, at the Rennie Oil Company pier.

It was not at all unusual for ships of the Georgian Bay Line to dock there in the course of special cruises when a ship would be booked for an organization such as the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce.

One of the line’s three ships to dock there was the South American, which was the last to operate and was retired from service after the 1967 season.

A near sister-ship, the North American, docked there, too.

And finally, a third ship, which was largely idle throughout the 1950s and cut-down to a barge in 1960, docked there, too. It was the Alabama.

Built in 1909 for the Goodrich Transportation Company, it was one of the most popular ships to operate on Lake Michigan.

“Probably no lake steamer had more friends or was better known than Alabama,” wrote James Elliot in his book on the Goodrich Line, Red Stacks on the Horizon.

“Because of her striking appearance and many bouts with Lake Michigan ice she appeared in many press photographs and soon earned the title ‘most photographed ship on the Lakes,’” Elliot added.

Built for winter operation in ice, the Alabama had a belt of extra steel plates flanking the waterline. The ship wasn’t easily stopped by ice, but, on occasion, it did happen.

In January 1918, it was trapped in ice two weeks at Grand Haven. Two other ships were also caught in the ice, the Grand Haven and Milwaukee. The Milwaukee had originally been built as the Manistique, Marquette and Northern No. 1 for service out of Northport.

The Alabama’s skipper at the time was Jerry Stufflebeam, whose last command was the Chief Wawatam, at the Straits of Mackinac. Stufflebeam, who had a long career on Lake Michigan, is best remembered for an instance when he was command of the steamer Missouri, a regular visitor to Leelanau ports.

During the Great Storm of November 1913, he ran the bow of the Missouri onto the sandy beach of South Manitou Island and had a hawser secured to a big tree. He successfully rode out the big storm, although the ship was a few days late reaching Chicago.

Chicago was the scene of the only mishap ever to plague the Alabama, other than the loss of Mr. Anderson. The ship grounded on an old water intake crib there in February 1920.

Repair work meant the ship was unavailable for service for several months.

To make up for the temporary loss of the ship, Goodrich charted another vessel from Michigan Transit Company for the Grand Haven-Muskegon route. The vessel chartered was none other than the locally familiar Missouri.

What sails around comes around, it seems.