Chris-Craft, one of America’s oldest and best-known boat builders, celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Stephen F. Heese has served as the company’s president for more than 23 years. We asked Heese to share his insights on the company’s trajectory from wooden boat builder to modern legacy brand.
SOUNDINGS: Can you take us through the highlights of the Chris-Craft origin story?
STEPHEN HEESE: In 1874, a young man, Christopher Columbus Smith, started making wooden duck boats. This was in Algonac, Michigan, a waterfront suburb of Detroit. The first evidence of incorporation of the company was in 1910, and it was called the Smith Ryan Boat Company. [The name was changed to Chris Smith & Sons in 1922.] Chris got to know Henry Ford and started marinizing car engines in the ’20s.
Chris Smith died in 1939. World War II soon began taking all of the yard’s production. They called them “Higgins boats” because they were designed at a New Orleans shipyard called Higgins. If you go to the World War II Museum in New Orleans, there is a whole section on the Higgins
