Aspen, 1906 (WAGL-204); (USLHT)
A poplar tree found in North America and Europe.
Builder: Craig Shipbuilding Company, Toledo, Ohio
Commissioned: 8 May 1906
Decommissioned: 25 January 1947; sold on 26 January 1948.
Displacement: 415 tons
Length: 125' 9"
Beam: 25'
Draft: 11' 10"
Powerplant: 1 compound reciprocating steam, 1 Scotch type boiler, coal-fired, producing 424 horse power.
Complement: 4 officers, 8 crewmen (1908)
Armament: None
Tender History:
The lighthouse tender Aspen, a bay and sound tender, was built at Toledo, Ohio for a cost of $70,572.50 by the Craig Shipbuilding Company. The company launched the tender in November 1905 and she was accepted into service and commissioned on 8 May 1906.
The Lighthouse Service assigned her to Detroit. She was transferred from the Lighthouse Service to the United States Navy on 16 April 1917, by executive order, soon after the United States entered World War I. Assigned to the 9th Naval District, headquartered at Great Lakes, Ill., Aspen operated out of that port under the auspices of the commandant of that district until her return to the Lighthouse Service on 1 July 1919.
During World War II she was assigned a hull number, WAGL-204. She served out of Sault Ste. Marie until she was decommissioned in 1947.
Sources:
Cutter History File. USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: USGPO.
Douglas Peterson. United States Lighthouse Service Tenders, 1840-1939. Annapolis: Eastwind Publishing, 2000.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982.