In 1880, as Sheboygan was still a struggling village of 2,000, Clemens A. Reiss, a thrifty German immigrant with a strong work ethic and keen business sense, founded Clemens Reiss and Company, a shipping business dealing in coal, wood, salt, and building materials. Eight years later he renamed and incorporated it as The C. Reiss Coal Company, and by 1890 the business had acquired its first vessel while The Reiss Steamship Company emerged as a separate entity. In its early years the company hauled coal on lake schooners unloaded with rope and tackle attached to the mast and powered by one man leading one horse back and forth to raise and lower an oak stave barrel half. Coal remained its main cargo, but in later years Reiss ships also carried large quantities of iron ore, limestone, and grain, and at its peak the line moved ten million tons of cargo annually. The fleet became known for sparkling white cabins, jet black hulls, and tall black smokestacks marked with a white letter R, while its red and black diamond logo with a white R became widely recognized across the Great Lakes. Reiss gained a reputation as one of the region's most progressive shipping companies by being among the first steamship lines to adopt radio direction finders, radar, marine telephones, diesel engines, high-speed steam turbines, bow thrusters, and self-unloader booms, and by continually improving its vessels, including the enlargement of the 618 foot S.S. William A. Reiss around 1960 by cutting the ship from bow to stern, raising the top half, and inserting a six foot section to increase carrying capacity by about fifty percent. For many years the fleet was insured through Lloyds of London, whose representatives came to Sheboygan annually, and Reiss also helped found the Great Lakes Protective Association, a marine insurance company created by Reiss and other steamship firms. Over more than eighty years, The Reiss Steamship Company owned more than forty ships, including tugs, bulk carriers, and self-unloaders, with the S.S. Reiss Brothers as flagship. As Great Lakes cargo traffic declined and fleets consolidated, the company was sold in 1969 to the American Steamship Company; at that time its fleet numbered five bulk carriers and six self-unloaders, and many Sheboygan residents long remembered the Reiss ships giving the Great Lakes Salute of three long horn blasts followed by two short blasts as they left the harbor for company headquarters.