Requirements of the United States implemented to obtain subsidies and mail contracts drove a design for a larger ship to transport the same amount of fruit.

The ship was one of six built under the Merchant Marine Act of 1928 for the United Mail Steamship Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company, designed with specialized cooling and handling arrangements for transporting bananas with Babcock & Wilcox boilers and General Electric turbo-electric transmission: Chiriqui, Peten (originally Segovia) andTalamanca from Newport News Shipbuilding and Antigua, Quirigua and Veragua from Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Construction in U.S. yards was a result of the Merchant Marine Act and more liberal government support in the form of mail contracts.

Aft at the main deck level was a special hold for cargo such as meat requiring lower temperatures than the fruit.

[9] The larger hull allowed for more passenger space and features of ocean liners previously not incorporated into the company's ships.

[7] On delivery Antigua was placed in the Pacific coastal passenger and banana trade between San Francisco and Armuelles.

[3] Schedules in 1933 show Antigua, Chiriqui and Talamanca operating on a route of San Francisco to Balboa with return via Puerto Armuelles and Los Angeles.

[citation needed] The ship operated under WSA with United Fruit Company acting as its agent and providing the civilian crew.

[4] The ship apparently continued to operate in the Pacific with mentions at Eniwetok late September 1944 and being aground and pulled off a reef in Hawaiian waters during 14–21 October 1944 by USS Jicarilla (ATF-104).

[4] Postwar Antigua resumed operations departing from New Orleans for destinations in Cuba, Guatemala and Honduras.