About: SS Arizona

The Arizona was a record breaking British passenger liner that was the first of the Guion Line's Atlantic Greyhounds on the Liverpool-Queenstown-New York route. One nautical historian called Arizona "a souped up transatlantic hot rod." Entering service in 1879, she was the prototype for Atlantic express liners until the Inman Line introduced its twin screw City of New York in 1889. The Arizona type liner is generally considered as unsuccessful because too much was sacrificed for speed. Laid up in 1894 when Guion stopped sailings, Arizona was sold four years later and briefly employed in the Pacific until she was acquired by the US Government for service in the Spanish–American War. As the U.S. Navy's Hancock she continued trooping through W.W.I. and was finally scrapped in 1926.