Specifications: Displacement 36,905 t.; Length 622'; Beam 73.5'; Draft unknown; Speed 14½ kts.; Complement unknown; Armament none; Propulsion two 2,293hp triple expansion engines with cylinders of 29", 51" and 89", stroke 57", two shafts.

Click on thumbnail for full size image	Size	Image Description		Source
SS Minnesota
	92k	.		.
USS Troy (ID 1614)
	132k	In an icy harbor, during the winter of 1917-1918. She is painted in Mackay low visibility camouflage. National Archives photo 19-N-7569		Naval Historical Center
	78k	"Bringing home 5000 troops", 1919. At right is USS Laub (Destroyer No. 263), which was commissioned in March 1919. U.S. Navy photo NH 63453		Naval Historical Center
	92k	In a European area harbor, 1919. Photographed by Putnam. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2006. Naval Historical Center photo NH 104122		Robert Hurst
	92k	At Brest, France, circa May-June 1919, probably while embarking troops for passage home to the United States. Two personnel lighters are nearby: Tudno at left and either Rin Tin Tin or Nenette in the center of the view.Photographed from on board USS Patricia. Photograph from the album of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Edward D. Porges. Donated by his daughter, Gail Porges Guggenheim, 2007. Naval Historical Center photo NH 105014		Robert Hurst
	92k	At Brest, France, circa May-June 1919, probably while embarking troops for passage home to the United States. The paddle-wheel personnel lighter Tudno is alongside. Photographed from on board USS Patricia. Photograph from the album of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Edward D. Porges. Donated by his daughter, Gail Porges Guggenheim, 2007. Naval Historical Center photo NH 105025		Robert Hurst

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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, writing at the time, noted “on January 22, 1905, the steamship Minnesota sails for Asia with 300 passengers and the largest cargo ever yet to cross the Pacific Ocean. Shipments range from a paper of pins to a hogshead of tobacco to a bale of cotton to the heaviest architectural steel as well as engines and railroad cars." She sailed from the Great Northern's Smith Cove dock with 28,000 tons of freight and was to call at Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Manila, and Hong Kong.

Minnesota made 40 round trip voyages between the U.S. West Coast and the Far East between January 1905 and October 1915. She was not making money however, and the First World War appeared to promise better opportunities for her enormous cargo-carrying capacity. In November 1915 Minnesota attempted to steam to the U.S. East Coast via Cape Horn but her boilers gave out early in the voyage and she had to be towed into San Francisco, California. She spent all of 1916 under repair and awaiting settlement of legal actions against her owner. Among other improvements made at this time her promenade deck was carried forward to the mainmast and she was given additional lifeboats. This ship was extremely uneconomical until reboilered in 1916, and also suffered from poor steering and veered badly at slow speeds. She also managed to break a propeller shaft in 1911.

In January of 1917 the Atlantic Transport Line bought Minnesota. She finally reached New York by way of the Panama Canal, and was armed in accordance with measures authorized by the U.S. Government and given a U.S. Navy gun crew. She began her first trans-Atlantic passage late in March 1917 and was in English waters when the United States declared war on Germany in April. During the remainder of the conflict Minnesota completed seven more round-trip voyages between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

In early 1919 the Navy chartered Minnesota. Renamed Troy (ID 1614), she was placed in commission in late February. After conversion to a troop transport, she made three passages from France to the U.S., bringing home more than fourteen thousand veterans of the Great War. USS Troy was decommissioned in mid-September 1919, returned to her owners and again became Minnesota. Though soon converted from coal to oil fuel for post-war commercial operation, the ship never resumed active service. For a time she was used as an isolation hospital in New York. Her passenger accommodation was closed off in 1920 and she was laid up in New york in 1922 before being sold for scrapping in Germany in November 1923.