Ambridge's American Bridge Co. constructing a towboat, circa 1912

"Fabricating steel hull for towboat
at Ambridge plant of American Bridge Company"
Industrial World 
July 8, 1912

I suspect that when many people remember the work done at Ambridge's American Bridge Co. plant, they think of structural steel fabricated for projects such as bridges, skyscrapers, or sports stadiums. But the Ambridge plant also built boats.

Not big boats. The Ohio River isn't deep enough for a shipyard that could build large ships. However, the Ambridge plant had a Barge Yard which built hundreds of barges, mostly freight barges, but also more specialized ones for dredges, derricks, or tanks that carried liquids like oil. 

The plant also occasionally built towboats, or at least the hulls for them, with the boats being finished elsewhere by their owners. 

Towboats are the boats that push barges. So, towboats don't "tow" a barge by pulling it the way a tow truck might pull a car; they push. (What can I say? English is weird.) In contrast, tugboats do pull ships. So, as I learned only recently, the boats you see pushing barges in the Ohio River are towboat, not tugboats. 

I don't know what towboat the photo above shows being built or who ordered it. Industrial World's July 8, 1912 issue doesn't provide that information anywhere that I could find.  And, as of now, I haven't found information elsewhere about a towboat being built in Ambridge in 1912. Perhaps the photo was taken earlier than 1912.

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During WWII, American Bridge's Navy Yard, built across Big Sewickley Creek from the plant, also built ships: 123 LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank).

And, during WWI, Ambridge's American Bridge plant fabricated the hulls for large ships that were then sent to shipyards capable of finishing the ships' construction. One of those ships was the freighter U.S.S. Ambridge. 

The same photo as the one above was also published in Coal and Coke Operator, July 25, 1912.