| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | SS Selma |
| Builder: | F.F. Ley and Company, Mobile, Alabama |
| Launched: | 28 June 1919 |
| Fate: | Abandoned in 1922 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 6,826 GRT 4,225 NRT |
| Length: | 425 ft (129.54 m) |
| Beam: | 54 ft (16.46 m) |
| Draught: | 36 ft (10.97 m) |
| Propulsion: | T.3-cyl. 359 nhp Single screw |
SS Selma was an oil tanker built in 1919 by F.F. Ley and Company, Mobile, Alabama. President Woodrow Wilson approved the construction of 24 concrete vessels of which only 12 were actually completed.
The SS Selma is notable in being the only permanent, and prominent wreck along the Houston Ship Channel, and approximately one mile north of Galveston Island.
Steel shortages during World War I led the U. s. to build experimental concrete ships, the largest of which was the SS Selma, today partially submerged in Galveston Bay and visible from both the Houston Ship Channel and Seawolf Park.
The SS Selma was built in Mobile, Alabama, and named to honor Selma, Alabama, for its successful wartime liberty loan drive. The ship was launched on June 28, 1919, the same day Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I. As a result, the 7,500-ton ship never entered the war, but instead was placed into service as an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico.
In Tampico, Mexico, on May 31, 1920, the SS Selma hit a jetty, ripping a hole in its hull about 60 feet long. After attempts to repair the ship in Galveston failed and efforts to sell the ship proved unsuccessful, US officials decided to intentionally scuttle theship. A channel 1,500 feet long and 25 feet deep was dug to a point just off Pelican Island's eastern shoreline where on March 9, 1922, the ship was laid to rest. The Selma has since been the object of failed plans to convert it for use as a fishing pier, pleasure resort, and an oyster farm. Long a source of curiosity and local legend, it remains important to scientists who continued to study aspects of its concrete construction.
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