TUGBOAT MOVED BUT NOT GONE

Solomon Juneau, a beloved old photo op, towed out of way of bridge work

Are you missing Solomon Juneau? I don’t mean Milwaukee’s founder and first mayor who’s been dead for 163 years.

The vintage red tugboat bearing his name has been moored the past 20 years or so on the Milwaukee River at Michigan Street.

So downtown denizens noticed when it disappeared last month.

“It’s amazing how many people called me and said, ‘What happened to the boat?’ It was like an old friend of theirs,” said Mark Gubin, owner, caretaker and partymeister of the Solomon Juneau.

Here’s the answer. The Michigan Street bridge over the river is being replaced and the boat was in the way. So Gubin had it towed — sadly, the old gal doesn’t run on her own power anymore — to Jerry’s Dock, a marina at 318 S. Water St.

It’s hard to find by land, especially compared with its former location along the RiverWalk in the heart of downtown. You traverse an obstacle course to reach the boat’s new home on the west bank of the river, tucked between the old railroad swing bridge in the river’s center and the longvacant concrete grain silos to the west.

But that’s where I found Mark, 76, still very much in love with his funky old boat and worried about its future. Because of development planned along the river at both its former and current locations, the next home of the Solomon Juneau is unknown.

Maybe there’s a restaurant on the water that would like the boat, which is 56 feet long and 50 tons, as a sort of maritime decoration. Mark thinks that would be fine, just as long as he could continue to visit regularly. He calls the boat his downtown condo and floating Winnebago.

If you sometimes fly into Milwaukee, you may be familiar with his actual home. It’s a converted theater in Bay View with this delightfully confusing message painted on the roof in large letters: “Welcome to Cleveland.” It’s been there on the flight path since the 1970s, and the story of his mischievous madness has spread all over the world.

The Solomon Juneau, or at least parts of it, dates back to 1903. Records of the early years are sketchy, but Mark has been told it was called the Centurion.

In the 1940s, it was renamed the Kevinbren and served as a fishing boat, ice breaker, dive boat and tugboat.

Over the years, the Kevinbren grabbed its share of headlines. In October 1952 its motor died 15 miles east of Milwaukee and the crew had to be rescued after a night on Lake Michigan. In April 1954 it suffered a head-on collision in the fog with an oil tanker on the lake. And in May 1971 it sank at the mouth of the Kinnickinnic River.

Mark, an artist and retired photographer, came along in 1981 to buy, restore and rename the boat. Its days of hard work were over. Mark invited friends aboard for parties and pleasure cruises and the best view of the lakefront fireworks. He once crammed 85 people on the decks.

Over the years, entertainers from the Riverside Theater would wander over to his boat, sometimes leaving him tickets for shows. The Rockettes showed up one day.

Politicians and riverbank walkers saw the boat as a photo op and conversation starter, and Mark indulged them. For a few years, he fed a pet seagull that liked to hang around. He named him Frank, and there’s still string wrapped on one railing as a more comfortable perch.

Even with a top speed of maybe 10 mph, the Solomon Juneau was coaxed by Mark all the way to Door County and Mackinac Island, but no farther. Mostly it stayed put, even in the ice all winter.

“We had a thousand parties. Three different people were married on it. It was just a fun thing to have,” Mark said.

It’s still a fun thing, but in a quieter way now that Mark’s friends are dying or harder to get out of the house, especially to stumble down to the Solomon Juneau’s current location. The new spot has, in Mark’s words, impoverished the spirit of the boat.

“It’s completely lost over there,” he said, even though it reigns as the biggest and oldest boat at the marina.

The Solomon Juneau is not for sale, at least for the time being. Mark turned down some TV producers who wanted to take it to Chicago to be used in a sitcom.

Maybe the visitors in town next summer for the Democratic National Convention would like to see the distinctly Milwaukee boat, he mused.

For now, Mark is trying not to let the uncertainty over the future lessen his enjoyment of the Solomon Juneau. The boat rocked gently in the sunshine as we talked on the stern, me on a lawn chair, Mark stretched out in a hammock.

“It’s a perfect day,” he said. “A perfect thing.”

Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Follow him at Facebook or on Twitter @columnboy.

Mark Gubin relaxes in a hammock on the rear deck of his historic Milwaukee tugboat, the Solomon Juneau. The boat is tied up at Jerry's Dock, 318 S. Water St. Gubin hangs out on the boat many days and has held many parties on its decks.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL SEARS / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL Mark Gubin sits on the sofa in what he has made into the living room on the tug. A stove at left is for when it's cold out.