States Steamship Company, also calledStates Line and SSS, was started in 1928 by Charles Dant, inPortland, Oregon and later moved to the headquarters toSan Francisco. Dant started the States Steamship Company to take his lumber product to market. He had a fleet of lumber schooners. Dant started by leasing ships from theUnited States Shipping Board -Emergency Fleet Corporation and founded theColumbia Pacific Steamship Company in 1919, Columbia Pacific Steamship Company routes were between Portland,Far East andEurope. In 1928 Dant merged the Columbia Pacific Steamship Company into the States Steamship Company. The Europe route ended in 1932 and the ship moved to aPhilippines route. With the shift tocontainer shipping in the 1960s and Dant's fleet of ships becoming older and obsolete, the company into bankruptcy in 1979. States Line operated four subsidies:Pacific-Atlantic Steamship Company,California Eastern Line founded in 1937 for lumber shipping,Oregon Oriental Line and theQuaker Line.[1][2]
Charles Dant was a major stock holder in theChina Import and Export Lumber Company, which had a large sawmill plant inShanghai.
In 1928 Charles Dant pick theswastika (at that time symbol of good luck until the 1930s) for this ship's flags. The red flag had a black upright swastika on it. AfterAdolf Hitler picked the swastika for theNazi Party flag in 1937, Dant was forced to change his flag to avoid associations with a state hostile to the United States. The first flag was blue and white with a red vertical stripe at the pole and was used until the 1950s. The swastikas painted on thefunnels have been replaced by a whitesun cross on a blue background. In the 1950s, the logo and flag was changed to a redseahorse between the waves. New logo was ordered inWalter Landor Associate and served until the end of the company's existence.[3]
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