S.S. Badger was one of fourteen ships in the Ludington railroad car ferry fleet. Badger and its sister ship S.S. Spartan were built in 1952 by the Christy Corporation of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and were named for the athletic teams of the University of Wisconsin and Michigan State University. The boats became a vital commercial link between the two states. The fleet had begun in 1897 under the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad, after that railroad had started shuttling produce, passengers, and freight in wooden steamers between Ludington and Wisconsin ports in 1875. Railroad car ferry service on the lakes began in 1892, eliminating the need to unload and reload rail cars before and after the crossing, and in 1897 the Pere Marquette, the first steel railroad car ferry on the Great Lakes, sailed from Ludington carrying as many as thirty fully loaded freight cars. By 1930 the Ludington fleet numbered nine boats, and during the peak season of 1955 the ferries carried 205,000 passengers, 71,000 automobiles, and 141,000 freight cars in nearly 7,000 crossings. Car ferry traffic peaked in the 1950s and then steadily declined, and in 1983 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad sold off the last of its fleet, including Badger and Spartan. Newly renovated in 1992, Badger resumed automobile, truck freight, and passenger service between Ludington and Manitowoc.