Prairie Class Auxiliary (1898)
From The Dreadnought Project
The five Prairie class auxiliary cruisers were Southern Pacific freighters purchased by the U.S. Navy in 1898 and converted into Armed Merchant Cruisers. After the end of the Spanish-American War these ships were converted to various uses, several becoming tenders for torpedo craft.
| Overview of five vessels | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citations for this data available on individual ship pages | |||||
| Name | Builder | Launched | Purchased | Commissioned | Fate |
| Prairie | William Cramp & Sons | 27 Sep, 1890 | 6 Apr, 1898 | 14 Apr, 1898 | Sold 22 Jun, 1923 |
| Yankee | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company | 14 Jun, 1892 | 6 Apr, 1898 | 14 Apr, 1898 | Wrecked 23 Sep, 1908 |
| Yosemite | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company | 16 Mar, 1892 | 6 Apr, 1898 | 13 Apr, 1898 | Scuttled 15 Nov, 1900 |
| Dixie | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company | 6 Oct, 1893 | 15 Apr, 1898 | 19 Apr, 1898 | Sold 25 Sep, 1922 |
| Buffalo | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company | 31 May, 1893 | 11 Jul, 1898 | 22 Sep, 1898 | Sold Sep 1927 |
Design & Construction
Built as freighters for the Southern Pacific railroad line, all with names beginning with El. Buffalo (originally El Cid) was sold to Brazil in 1893 as an armed merchant cruiser and named Nictheroy before being sold to the U.S. Navy.[1]
Performance
Armament
See Also
Footnotes
- ↑ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 168.
- ↑ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 168.
- ↑ Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 32.
Bibliography
- Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
- Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.
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