NORTH STAR was built by YATES MARINE CONSTRUCTION CO. (Yates, Jack and Pluckebaum, Arthur) in Wheeling, (Wheeling Island) West Virginia in 1956 as a steel-hulled single prop Diesel towboat with a General Motors 6-71 250 hp diesel engine for the North Star Transfer Co., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she was completed. Length 50’ width 12’. NORTH STAR was the fifth boat built by Yates in Wheeling, and NORTH STAR was still listed in the 1980 INLAND RIVER RECORD with the number 270944. The boat’s registered number was listed beginning in 1980.
Source: Way, Frederick, Jr., INLAND RIVER RECORD 1956 Sewickley, Pa.
Source: Way, Frederick, Jr., and Owen, Daniel C., INLAND RIVER RECORD 1975 Sewickley, Pa.
Source: Owen, Daniel C., INLAND RIVER RECORD 1980 A Publication of the Waterways Journal St. Louis, MO.

NORTH STAR Diesel Towboat 1956
Liberty Marine photo

YATES MARINE CONSTRUCTION CO. (Yates, Thomas ‘Jack’ and Pluckebaum, Arthur) began building diesel towboats, ferry flats and barges in Wheeling, (Wheeling Island) West Virginia in 1953. Yates and Pluckebaum had worked in the Louisville, Kentucky, Jeffersonville, Indiana boat yards, and in 1953, they decided to go out on their own. That year, they came to Wheeling where they established a boat yard on Wheeling Island.
Source: Bowman, John, WHEELING THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE AMERICAN STEAMBOAT 2008 Wheeling, West Virginia