This image shows the schooner King & Winge signaling distress by flying its flag upside down, probably en route to rescue the crew of the Karluk, which sank in the Chukchi Sea in January 1914.
The King & Winge was one of the most famous ships ever built in Seattle. Designed by Albert Winge, she was built by the King & Winge shipyard, intended as the biggest and best halibut schooner on the coast. The construction was very strong, and she was covered with a layer of ironbark sheathing. The King & Winge was chartered before construction was completed by the Hibbard-Swenson Co. for a 1914 expedition to the Arctic for hunting, trading, and making a motion picture. Over the next 80 years the King & Winge was present at the wreck of the Princess Sophia in 1918 and was employed as a halibut schooner, a rum runner, a pilot boat, a yacht, and a crabber. She sank in high seas in the Bering Sea, without loss of life, in 1994.
The King and Winge Shipbuilding Company was an important maritime concern on Puget Sound from 1899 until the late 1920s. The shipyard was located at West Seattle and owned by Thomas J. King (1843–1925) and Albert M. Winge (1868-1916). Albert Winge's nephew Carl B. Winge (1891-1956), and Carl's future business partner in Olson & Winge Marine Works, Oscar E. Olson (b. 1882), both worked on the King & Winge schooner at the King and Winge Shipbuilding Company from about 1910-1917.
ID Number: 1972.5503.131
Date: 1914
Physical Description: 1 photographic print : b&w ; 7 x 9 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State. View the finding aid for this collection at https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv50635.
Credit: MOHAI, Olson & Winge Marine Works Photographs, 1972.5503.131
