Prairie Class Auxiliary (1898)

The five Prairie class auxiliary cruisers were Southern Pacific freighters purchased by the U.S. Navy in 1898 and converted into Armed Merchant Cruisers. After the end of the Spanish-American War these ships were converted to various uses, several becoming tenders for torpedo craft.

Overview of five vessels
Citations for this data available on individual ship pages
Name	Builder	Launched	Purchased	Commissioned	Fate
Prairie	William Cramp & Sons	27 Sep, 1890	6 Apr, 1898	14 Apr, 1898	Sold 22 Jun, 1923
Yankee	Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company	14 Jun, 1892	6 Apr, 1898	14 Apr, 1898	Wrecked 23 Sep, 1908
Yosemite	Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company	16 Mar, 1892	6 Apr, 1898	13 Apr, 1898	Scuttled 15 Nov, 1900
Dixie	Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company	6 Oct, 1893	15 Apr, 1898	19 Apr, 1898	Sold 25 Sep, 1922
Buffalo	Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company	31 May, 1893	11 Jul, 1898	22 Sep, 1898	Sold Sep 1927

Design & Construction

Built as freighters for the Southern Pacific railroad line, all with names beginning with El. Buffalo (originally El Cid) was sold to Brazil in 1893 as an armed merchant cruiser and named Nictheroy before being sold to the U.S. Navy.

Armament

• Extremely varied.

See Also

• Wikipedia: Prairie
• Wikipedia: Yankee
• Wikipedia: Yosemite
• Wikipedia: Dixie
• Wikipedia: Buffalo

Bibliography

• Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
• Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.