She has been scrapped, the National Archives "HABS/HAER" program did a documentation of her history & photos of her at the SBRF. The government is at this point "shut down" and I can't get the link to come up, but I'll post it when their website is working properly.

I talked to MARAD about her condition with an eye to saving her for a museum, and her topsides wer in great shape, structurally, though she did evidently need some waterline re-plating. A book about the oil industry's history called "the Prize" won the Pulitzer Prize & was made into a PBS miniseries, as I recall. If that much is possible paper and ink, I think a ship museum, DONE RIGHT, would work too. It could be used to "discuss" the future energy, environmental issues, etc.

Anyway, the Shoshone is still there as are the Mount Washington & Mount Vernon.

The Exxon Gettysburg was my last ship prior to transferring to Exxon International. I was sailing as 1st engineer and took it through shipyard in '81. The only one of this class that I didn't sail on was the Washington.

I worked for Exxon briefly in the late 1980's, and worked aboard the Washington (3rd Mate). Exxon laid it up in 12/89 in Port Arthur TX, and I believe it was operated by Coastal thereafter. The Washington had been retrofit with a piping to allow it to load crude over the bow. Exxon had an Oil Rig "Hondo" in the Santa Barbara Channel and the fleet's "Hondo-rigged" ships were used to ferry oil from the rig to the refineries.

At the end, we ran it from Baytown Texas to Baton Rouge, carrying VGO. Steam plant, steam pumps, steam winches! Had a blast on her. Focsle had a cargo hatch, and a hold big enough to play basketball. Was never on a ship like that one ever again.

Does anybody have any details (beyond standard specs) or recollections of this ship, or her sisters (Esso Washington, Lexington and Jamestown)? I read that the main turbines had a weird habit of moving around just slightly?