Mid 20th Century: "Steelcraft" mono hull pleasure boats were available. Quite a few on New England inside waters... for a while. Rust begin to really show up. Sales plummeted!! That house boat might be from a dream in someone's mind from seeing Steelcraft boats.
Steelcruisers Steelcraft History page
Quotes: "In May of 1950 Churchward and Co. reorganized under the name Steelcraft Boats, Inc. In September 1952, Steelcraft Boats, Inc. filed bankruptcy."
[During better days!] - - - "The Steelcraft line ranges in price from $2,295 for a 20-foot Sea Dog Utility with a 4-cylinder Gray model 475D engine, to $10,985 for the new 35-foot two-stateroom sedan. The prices for the 26-foot models range from $3,797 for the Holiday cruiser with a Gray 116 h.p. red. model to $8,201 for a twin-screw twin-stateroom deluxe sedan equipped with two Gray model 6220D engines. Engine installations with power up to 360 h.p. can be installed if so desired. Steelcraft has standardized on the Gray and Packard engines.
In addition to the firm's stock boats, it is currently turning out (under a $1,000,000 contract) one 45-foot boat weekly, and one 32-foot daily for the Creole Petroleum CO., for use in Venezuelan offshore fields. These are extremely rugged, Diesel-powered boats designed by Philip L. Rhodes expressly y for this service. The Churchward Company is also engaged on government development projects.
Fifty-four-old Jack Churchward is a metallurgical engineer and a graduate of Exeter, Princeton and the University of Göttingen, Germany. He holds more than fifty patents, and much evidence of his ingenuity, and that of his chief engineer, Marcus A. Hall, and his superintendent, George Lawlor, is to be found in the equipment and arrangement of the plant."
