The yard is notable for completing more ships for the United States war effort during World War I than any other American shipyard, and also for breaking world production speed records for individual ship construction.

In total, the company built 75 ships—72 cargo ships and three oil tankers—from 1916 to 1920, including 32 completed for the Emergency Fleet Corporation during the war.

Skinner & Eddy later became a shipping line operator, and appears to have been wound up in the early 1970s.

[1] Shortly after its establishment on the downtown Seattle waterfront47°35′25″N 122°20′22″W / 47.5902°N 122.33941°W / 47.5902; -122.33941,[2] Skinner & Eddy Corp. began leasing the shipyard of the Seattle Construction and Drydock Company (at the time a subsidiary of Todd Shipbuilding), located a few steps north between Connecticut and Dearborn Street.

[3] On April 6, 1917, 15 months after Skinner and Eddy Corp. began leasing the yard, the United States entered World War I. Skinner & Eddy responded to the news by purchasing an additional 15 acres (61,000 m2) of Seattle waterfront property from the Seattle Dock Company and the Centennial Flouring Mill for $1,500,000 and $600,000 respectively, which they used to begin building a second shipyard, which became known as Plant No.

After securing lucrative contracts from the Emergency Fleet Corporation for the construction of merchant ships for the war effort, Skinner & Eddy was also able in June 1918 to make an outright purchase of the yard of Seattle Construction and Dry Dock, which was named Plant No.

[3] When completed, Skinner & Eddy's facilities included ten building slipways—five at each Plant—and four outfitting docks.

A five-section, 459-foot (140 m) drydock capable of servicing vessels of up to 15,000 tons was also acquired, along with a 50-ton floating crane.

With its two plants, which together covered about 57 acres (230,000 m2) of waterfront property,[4] Skinner & Eddy was Seattle's largest shipbuilding company, at its wartime peak employing about 13,500 people.

Thereafter, Skinner & Eddy was to build ships exclusively for the USSB, through the latter's agency, the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFT).

Prior to its operations, a cargo ship built and delivered in the United States in under 250 days was considered fast,[7] but as early as June 1917, the company under the capable direction of its general manager, David Rodgers, completed a freighter, Stolt Nielson, in under 150 days.

In all, Skinner & Eddy delivered 32 ships to the EFT, including 29 freighters and three tankers, over the course of the war[5]—more than that of any other shipyard in the country.

In Skinner & Eddy's case, this meant that the company was to complete a further 43 ships for the USSB in the postwar period.

In 1944, Skinner & Eddy bought the Alaska Steamship Company, and in the postwar period also operated a cruise line.

[6] The company built three different types of standard freighters for the USSB, all of them of Skinner & Eddy's own design.

[13] Additionally, eleven 8,800 deadweight-ton freighters, similar if not identical to the Design 1013s were built prior to the manufacture of the USSB types listed above.

[14] Only one Skinner & Eddy ship was lost (to enemy action) in World War I.

Three, Western Front, Elkton and Nile were lost to maritime accidents in the 1920s, and seven more were scrapped in the 1930s, probably because of the oversupply of shipping.

The last Skinner & Eddy vessel to see service was probably Edray, transferred to the Soviet Union under lend-lease during World War II and scrapped in 1967.

[3] The following table represents a complete list of all ships built by the Skinner & Eddy Corporation.

Ships for which an exact tonnage is not available are listed here with the nominal GRT of the type, usually recognizable by the last two digits being zero.