Pacific Mail Steamship Company starting in 1848. Following the end of the
Mexican–American War in 1848, the
West Coast of the United States then extended from
Puget Sound to
San Diego. When the
29th United States Congress passed the Mail Steamer Bill (1847), mail delivery was authorized to be routed by ship from the
East Coast of the United States to the Pacific Coast via the
Isthmus of Panama, with two steamship routes operating: New York City to
Chagres,
Colombia on the Eastern side of the isthmus, and then a second route from
Panama City, Colombia, to
Astoria, Oregon. That same year,
William Henry Aspinwall secured a 10-year government contract through Arnold Harris, with the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company incorporating in the state of New York with a capital of $400,000, of which Aspinwall was elected the first president. This company was to move the mail from
Panama to the West Coast, being paid $199,000 per annum by the U.S. government. In January 1848, the company ordered three
mail steamers from the
shipyard of
William Henry Webb: the SS
California, SS
Panama and SS
Oregon. On October 5 or October 6, 1848 the Pacific Mail's first of these
steamers, the SS
California, departed from New York City to run service from
Panama to the West Coast, traveling around
Cape Horn to San Francisco—coincidentally, the
California Gold Rush began in January of that year, and the steamer—and its sisters,
Oregon and
Panama—took on many hopeful miners en route.
Clipper ships sacrificed cargo capacity for speed, but in some markets, the fast service allowed their owners to charge premium rates (e.g. tea from China tasted better if it was fresh, so the cargo on the first ship of the season to arrive in New York was worth more). Also, faster speed meant that the vessel could complete more voyages in a given time period, which compensated for the diminished cargo capacity. When in 1850, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company established a competing line to the
U.S. Mail Steamship Company between
New York City and
Chagres,
George Law placed an opposition Pacific Line of steamers (SS
Antelope, SS
Columbus, SS
Isthmus, SS
Republic) in the Pacific running from Panama City to San Francisco. In April 1851 the rivalry was ended when an agreement was made between the companies, the U.S. Mail Steamship Company purchased the Pacific Mail steamers on the Atlantic side (SS
Crescent City, SS
Empire City, SS
Philadelphia), and George Law sold his ships and new line to the Pacific Mail. By 1850 Pacific Mail maintained a monopoly over the Panama-Oregon trade, helped by the purchase of two steamers from Empire City Line. Large numbers of prospective gold miners paying for passage to California had meant that by 1850, the capital of Pacific Mail had increased from $400,000 to over $2 million. Pacific Mail also ordered four new ships, designed to meet the needs of trade to and from California, and opened ship depots at Panama City and
Benicia, California. Aspinwall invested in the
Panama Railroad Company, which would replace old wagon trails across the Isthmus, cutting travel time from four days to four hours. In 1852 George Law went into partnership with Aspinwall and developed its eastern terminal next to the wharf at
Aspinwall, Columbia, then sold his interest in 1853. This line was completed in 1855, and coordination between steamships and this line meant the travel time from San Francisco to New York was cut to 21 days. In 1856, Aspinwall retired from the position of president of the Pacific Mail Company, with the former secretary, William H. Davidge, taking the presidency. Under his control, the company's capital doubled, to $4 million, but the major turning point of his presidency of the company was in 1858, when Pacific Mail's contract with the government expired. At the same time, the contract of the U.S. Mail Steamship Company also expired. This company had been providing the ships for the New York to Panama route and went out of business in 1859. A through service was deemed necessary (and profitable), and the company bought three new ships: the SS
Adriatic, SS
Atlantic and SS
Baltic, all of which had formerly belonged to
Collins Line. Competition from the other Atlantic steamship lines was fierce, however, and within a few years, the route on the Atlantic side was pulled. During the 1880s Pacific Mail modernized its ships with
steel hulls, replacing the old iron vessels, and installed
electric lighting by
Thomas Edison on the SS
Columbia, making it the first ship to have electrical power in the world. In 1893, the
Southern Pacific Co. acquired control over the Pacific Mail. In 1902, Pacific Mail launched the SS
Korea and SS
Siberia, which were its first steel-hulled ships, followed by SS
Manchuria and SS
Mongolia in 1904. These ships were the largest and fastest passenger-freight ships in the Pacific, the latter two measuring more than 13,600 gross tons, larger than any other ship the company owned at the time. In 1912, Congress banned ships owned by railroads from using the
Panama Canal, and so Pacific Mail was sold to
W. R. Grace and Company, where it operated as a subsidiary from 1916 till 1925, when the company's trans-Pacific fleet was bought over by the
Dollar Shipping Company for $5,625,000 in cash.
Dollar Shipping Company of Dollar Steamship Line Meanwhile, Captain
Robert Dollar purchased his first ship, marking the beginning of his shipping empire. Dollar was born in
Falkirk, Scotland in 1844, moving to Canada at the age of 11, where he worked in a
lumber camp. Following this, in 1893, he purchased his own sawmill on the Pacific Coast. Due to unreliable shipping timetables, he found it hard to ship his
lumber from the
Pacific Northwest down the coast towards California. Hence, in 1893 Dollar bought a steam
schooner called
Newsboy. This led to the establishment of the
Dollar Steamship Company (commonly known as "Dollar Line") on August 12, 1900, which soon grew to have a large fleet of schooners transporting lumber to market. just as the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 was beginning, Dollar Steamship Line (renamed that same year) ordered two steam
turbo-electric ocean liners—the largest yet built for a US shipping company. was completed in 1930 and was completed in 1931. They were state-of-the-art, luxurious
sister ships rivaling the best hotels of the era, but by then the
Great Depression had deepened and the ships carried only half their capacity on their maiden voyages. On May 16, 1932, Robert Dollar died at the age of 88 and was succeeded by his son, Robert Stanley Dollar. The company began a steady decline. The faltering Dollar companies were now faced with sharply increased operating costs. In December 1937
President Hoover ran aground off the east coast of
Taiwan, and was written off as a
constructive total loss. By 1938 The company was $7 million in debt, with interest increasing this by $80,000 per day. In June 1938
President Coolidge was arrested (seized under admiralty law) in San Francisco for a £35,000 unpaid debt.
American President Lines of American President Lines, adopted in 1938. In August 1938, the
United States Maritime Commission judged the Dollar Shipping Company unsound and assumed control over it, appointing
William Gibbs McAdoo to succeed R. Stanley Dollar and Joseph R. Sheehan as the new president of the line. The first item of business was an amendment to the corporate charter, renaming the line as "American President Lines". By 1940, the U.S. government had commissioned 16 new ships for APL, continuing the "president" naming of ships, one of these examples being SS
President Jackson, a C-3 class merchant vessel. In 1941, the U.S. entered World War II, and in 1942 the War Shipping Administration was created, of which APL was an agent. APL worked on the management of some of the Administration's ships, maintaining and overhauling them as well as crewing them and being responsible for the handling of cargo and passengers. APL's own ships were used, in addition to the many
Liberty and
Victory ships that were built. In 1944, an additional 16 ships were built specifically for APL, including SS
President Buchanan, a Victory class vessel. At the end of the war in 1945, the company's assets were valued at $40 million. In 1945, R. Stanley Dollar, son of Robert Dollar, initiated court proceedings in the form of the Dollar case, in an attempt to force the return of the company from the government to his family. This case would last seven years, ending with the 1952 privatization of APL by oil executive
Ralph K. Davies, backed by
Signal Oil and Gas, with 50% of the proceeds going to the Dollar family. the government continuing the operation of APL in the meantime. APL restarted its round-the-world passenger service, and launched the and the next year, which were advertised as "your American hotel abroad." In the 1950s, the company again expanded, building more ships; 11 were built between 1952 and 1954. These included C-4 class cargo ships. Davies also acquired control of American Mail Line with the aim of reintegrating it into APL. In 1958, the company began investigating the possibility of
containerization, and sent research teams into 28 major ports. Following their reports, Davies began integrating containers into the company's business. By 1961, the company had begun launching ships capable of container transport, the first two of these being the combination break-bulk - container vessels SS
President Tyler and SS
President Lincoln. Ports also began adapting to the new container-based system, although many potential customers were still wary. By the end of the decade, the company was still launching combination ships rather than fully cellular
container ships as already employed by several U.S., British, European and Japanese lines, yet by 1969, 23% of the company's business moved via container. In 1961, APL moved it headquarters to the newly constructed
International Building at the intersection of California and Kearny Streets in San Francisco's financial district. a direct rail land-bridge service transporting containers from Los Angeles to New York using its own rail cars, leading to the most reliable delivery of containers of the time. At the same time, the company built its three largest vessels to date: three C-9 class diesel-powered container ships, the first of which was the
President Lincoln. an idea following on from the successful LinerTrain venture. This involved using
double-stack rail cars that could carry containers stacked one on top of another rather than carrying just a single level of containers. Each rail car had a well that held the bottom container, thereby lowering the two stacked containers to reduce their combined height to fit within rail line clearances, hence the common name for double stack cars: "well cars." Double-stacking containers in well cars was developed in the late 1970s and first deployed in 1981, but APL was the first shipping line to fully embrace and exploit the concept. APL's cars were developed and manufactured by
Thrall Car, while line-haul rail service was initially provided by the
Union Pacific Railroad and
Chicago and North Western Railway, and eventually by
Conrail once track clearances were enlarged. In 1991, APL started stack train service from
Chicago to Mexico, serving
Chrysler auto plants, as well as providing general service. The company also invested heavily in
information technology, using this to keep track of its ever-growing fleet of trains, containers and ships. This has been continually upgraded ever since. In 1999, the stack train franchise was sold off to Pacer, and is now known as Pacer Stacktrain. In the new millennium, the company's business began to falter. In 2001, parent company NOL reported losses of $57 million, followed by an amazing loss of $330 million in 2002. At this same time, APL's sales dropped from $3.8 billion in 2000 to $3.4 billion in 2002. Acting CEO Ron Widdows began a campaign of cost cutting and sped up decision making, and since 2003, the company has been making money again. In 2005, the company introduced the "Real-Time Locating System" using
RFID tags, which accurately recorded the position of every container within the system, reducing delays and lost containers—APL's Global Gateway South terminal in Los Angeles now moves 1.65 million TEUs annually. , Australia. On June 10, 2016, APL and NOL became subsidiaries of CMA-CGM when over 90% of NOL stocks were purchased by the container line. Later that year, CMA CGM subsidiary U.S. Lines as well as the transpacific business of ANL was consolidated into APL. In November 2016, the Hong Kong
Customs and Excise Department seized a shipment of nine
Terrex APC vehicles, along with other equipment, belonging to the Singapore Armed Forces at the
Kwai Tsing Container Terminal (formerly Kwai Chung Container Terminal). The shipment was seized because APL, which had been engaged by the Singapore military to handle the shipment, did not have the appropriate permits for the vehicles and equipment. In January 2017, it was announced that Hong Kong Customs would be returning the military equipment to Singapore, and that APL would be working with the Hong Kong authorities to ship the vehicles and related equipment back to Singapore. Commissioner of the
Customs and Excise Department, Roy Tang Yun-kwong, added that APL would likely face criminal charges for breaching Hong Kong Law in this incident. In 2019, American President Lines and the captain of the involved ship was charged with violating the Import and Export (Strategic Commodities) Regulations, which they both pleaded not guilty to. In April 2019, they were found guilty, with American President Lines sentenced to 90,000 HKD in fines (10,000 HKD for each vehicle), and the captain sentenced to 9,000 HKD in fines (1,000 HKD for each vehicle) and 3 months of jail time (suspended for 1.5 years). In January 2017, container ship
APL Denver collided with
Wan Hai 301, a ship belonging to Singapore, off Pasir Gudang Port in Johor, Malaysia. The accident occurred because
APL Denver had crossed the path of
Wan Hai 301 while it was moving through the separation scheme.
APL Denver was heavily damaged, with at least 300 tonnes of oil spilled into the water near Pasir Gudang Port. Since October 2020, APL has focused exclusively on U.S. Government business - leaving CMA CGM as the sole brand in the transpacific. == Terminals ==