Wakulla was a steam cargo ship built in 1918-1919 by Los Angeles Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company of San Pedro for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. After unloading her cargo there, Wakulla shifted to Liverpool, England, late in October 1918. Underway from Liverpool on 9 November 1918, Wakulla was en route to New York when the armistice of 11 November 1918 stilled the guns of World War I.