Following the end of the war, the vessel returned to private operation in 1946 until 1967 when Mizpah was laid up with a broken crankshaft at Tampa, Florida.

[2] In 1929 it was sold to Eugene F. McDonald of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation,[1][3] who used it both as a Chicago residence and a floating laboratory on which to test his electronics company's new products.

Mizpah departed Sturgeon Bay on 16 November 1942 for service as a convoy escort along the eastern coast of the United States between New York City and Key West, Florida until July 1944.

She was decommissioned on 16 January 1946 and transferred to the United States War Shipping Administration (WSA) on 25 September 1946 for disposal.

At that time, Eugene Kinney,[3] McDonald's nephew and Zenith Corporation vice president who had grown up on Mizpah and served as a naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II, learned of her plight and purchased her.