Great Lakes Patrol assigned to operate against criminals who were ravaging the logging industry. These so called timber pirates conducted illegal cutting of timber on federal land and then smuggled the valuable commodity out of the area in order to sell it. The areas most affected were in the western Great Lakes region, along the coasts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Much of these forested areas controlled by the government were reserved for the building of new warships. The illegal timber trade centered on Chicago and Milwaukee. It was nearly as violent as the alcohol trade, which was carried out over the
Marine Museum of the Great Lakes Marine Museum of the Great Lakes The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes moved from the 1892 Kingston Dry Dock, a national historic site in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, when the federal government sold the property in 2016. The museum galleries are closed and the collections have been moved into storage until the museum finds a new property to reopen to the public. The Marine Museum office has moved to 53 Yonge Street, Kingston, Ontario. Once an important construction and repair facility for ships on the Great Lakes, the Kingston Dry Dock was constructed in 1890 by the Canadian federal government