Dollar Steamship Lines, President Liner Service

The Dollar Steamship Company was an American shipping company in operation from 1901 to 1938. The company was established by a Scottish-born California lumber baron Robert Dollar (1844-1932) who, in 1903, expanded his business interest to British Columbia. His initial interest in shipping was to transport lumber across the Pacific to markets in China but by the 1920s, Dollar Line ships were offering round the world passenger and cargo services.

Dollar expanded his company by buying out competitors. In 1925, he took over the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. This firm operated passenger a cargo vessels named for U.S. presidents and the Dollar Steamship Lines carried on with this convention. For several years in the 1920s, the Dollar Steamship Company operated several ships registered in Vancouver with British officers and Chinese crews. In 1937, the company went bankrupt and was sold to the United States Maritime Commission who created the American President Line which was in turn absorbed by Neptune Orient of Singapore in 1997.