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Yahoo
12-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Wreckage Of SS Western Reserve, Lost In 1892, Discovered In Lake Superior
We love a big boat, don't we, folks? From MV Evergiven to MV Mark W. Barker to good old MV Golden Ray, big boats are typically good for hours of family entertainment. Sometimes, however — especially if you have the honor of living in the Great Lakes Region — there's a darker side to messing around in boats. Somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 shipwrecks litter Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior, and the lakes have claimed the lives of roughly 30,000 mariners and passengers since we started keeping records. While Lake Michigan has the most shipwrecks, and Lake Erie has the highest density, Lake Superior has, perhaps, the most famous. There are nearly 600 vessels scattered across the bottom of Lake Superior, everything from nameless barges and tugs to the legendary Edmund Fitzgerald herself. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum is located on Whitefish Point — a spit of land every bit as dangerous as the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn — along Lake Superior's southern shore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. There are nearly 200 shipwrecks within spitting distance of Whitefish Point, including the aforementioned Fitz. So many, in fact, that locals call it the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes". One of these long-lost vessels, SS Western Reserve, has eluded discovery since she disappeared in a late-summer gale in 1892. In 2024, however, Darryl Ertel — Director of Marine Operations at The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society — discovered a wreck in 100 fathoms water some 60 miles northwest of Whitefish Point. It was a large vessel, broken in half with the bow section resting on the stern at a roughly 45-degree angle. At long last, the Western Reserve had been found. Read more: There's A Relic Runway From America's Failed Supersonic Future Hiding In The Everglades SS Western Reserve was laid down at the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1890. One of the first ever lake propeller-driven lake freighters made entirely of steel plate, she was built for financier and shipping magnate Peter G. Minch's Minch Transportation Company. She was 301-feet long, 42-feet abeam, drew 21-feet of water, and had a crew of 26 officers and men. The ship's power plant was a thoroughly modern CSC triple-expansion steam engine that gave her a top speed around 12 knots, or 14 miles per hour. She was, by all accounts, a stout, fast, well-built ship that promised to revolutionize bulk shipping on the Great Lakes. Built to break cargo shipping records, Western Reserve entered service in late 1890. For the next year and a half, the big vessel carried countless tons of bulk cargo—typically iron and other bulk ores—without incident. She quickly gained a reputation for speed and safety, and was nicknamed "the inland greyhound". Unfortunately, her career was cut tragically short when, in 1892, she was lost in a Lake Superior gale with only one survivor. In late August of 1892, SS Western Reserve set sail from Cleveland, Ohio, under the command of Captain Albert Myer. She was in ballast and headed for Two Harbors, Minnesota, to pick up a cargo of iron ore. Along with her officers and crew were embarked her owner, Peter G. Minch, and Minch's wife, children, sister-in-law, and his sister-in-law's daughter. The weather was fair, and everything looked fine for a late-summer cruise across Lake Superior. By the time Western Reserve reached Whitefish Bay, however, the weather had started to turn rough. Captain Myer gave the order to drop anchor and wait out the weather. Eventually the winds died down, the ship weighed anchor, and they set off again toward Two Harbors. The lull in the weather was a fakeout, however, and the ship was hit by a massive squall at around 2100 hours that evening. She foundered in the heavy seas, and as Captain Myer gave the order to abandon ship, Western Reserve broke in two and sank. Two lifeboats were launched, and all officers, crew, and passengers escaped the doomed ship. Sadly, one of the lifeboats capsized almost immediately. The other lifeboat, containing Minch, his family, and a handful of crewmen, rescued the two survivors from the capsized lifeboat and made its way into the eye of the storm. They were almost rescued in the night by a passing steamer, but without any flares aboard, the passing ship's lookout missed the tossing lifeboat. The next morning around 0730, the lifeboat approached shore near the Deer Park Lifesaving Station, but rough surf capsized the boat less than a mile from shore. Only one person survived, Wheelsman Harry W. Stewart of Algonac, MI. The rest, including Minch and his family, drowned within sight of salvation. Western Reserve's foundering and the loss of her owner and his family sent shockwaves through the Great Lakes shipping industry and community. The disaster was even covered by the New York Times. At his post-rescue debriefing, Wheelsman Stewart's description of previously unreported metal fatigue throughout Western Reserve's hull and the rapidity with which she broke up suggested shady dealings on the part of Cleveland Shipbuilding. An investigation turned up evidence that CSC had used steel contaminated with sulfur and phosphorus in Western Reserve's construction. The addition of those elements to the steel made it weak and brittle, unable to stand up to the constant abuse of the Great Lakes shipping season. Nearly two months later, SS W.H. Gilcher, a ship of comparable size and speed to Western Reserve, disappeared in northern Lake Michigan with the loss of all hands. Gilcher had been built at the same time as Western Reserve and with the same steel. Outrage at the loss of both ships, a beloved ship's captain and his family, and the ensuing contaminated steel scandal led to serious changes in the laws governing what materials Great Lakes freighters could be built from. In late summer of 2024, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society research vessel David Boyd, under command of Director of Marine Operations Darryl Ertel, discovered an unidentified wreck northeast of Whitefish Point. "We (were) side-scan looking out a half mile per side and we caught an image on our port side," said Ertel in a story posted on the GLSHS website. "It was very small looking out that far, but I measured the shadow, and it came up about 40 feet. So we went back over the top of the ship and saw that it had cargo hatches, and it looked like it was broken in two, one half on top of the other and each half measured with the side scan 150 feet long and then we measured the width and it was right on so we knew that we'd found the Western Reserve." Once the results of the Sonar scan were analyzed, GLSHS performed a handful of ROV (remotely operated vehicle, think a small, remote-controlled submarine covered in lights and cameras) missions to the wreck site. Researchers confirmed the identity of the wreck as the Western Reserve using the ship's known dimensions and the existence of some identifying artifacts including the vessel's bell, foremast, and port-side running light. The Western Reserve's starboard running light — the only artifact ever recovered from the ship — washed ashore not long after the disaster and is now on display at the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio. Discovering a long-lost Great Lakes shipwreck is always satisfying, especially when it's one that researchers have been after for so long. It's also quite sobering, and a reminder of just how deadly the Great Lakes can be. "Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made a uneasy feeling in the back of my neck, a squall can come up and anytime." Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
CNN
12-03-2025
- General
- CNN
Explorers discover wreckage of cargo ship that sank in Lake Superior more than 130 years ago
Twenty years before the Titanic changed maritime history, another ship touted as the next great technological feat set sail on the Great Lakes. The Western Reserve was one of the first all-steel cargo ships to traverse the lakes. Built to break speed records, the 300-foot (91-meter) freighter dubbed 'the inland greyhound' by newspapers was supposed to be one of the safest ships afloat. Owner Peter Minch was so proud of her that he brought his wife and young children aboard for a summer joyride in August 1892. As the ship entered Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay between Michigan and Canada on Aug. 30, a gale came up. With no cargo, the ship was floating high in the water. The storm battered it until it cracked in half. Twenty-seven people perished, including the Minch family. The only survivor was wheelsman Harry W. Stewart, who swam a mile (1.6 kilometers) to shore after his lifeboat capsized. For almost 132 years, the lake hid the wreckage. In July, explorers from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society pinpointed the Western Reserve off Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The society announced the discovery Saturday at the annual Ghost Ships Festival in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. 'There's a number of concurrent stories that make this important,' the society's executive director, Bruce Lynn, said in a telephone interview. 'Most ships were still wooden. It was a technologically advanced ship. They were kind of a famous family at the time. You have this new ship, considered one of the safest on the lake, new tech, a big, big ship. (The discovery) is another way for us to keep this history alive.' Darryl Ertel, the society's marine operations director, and his brother, Dan Ertel, spent more than two years looking for the Western Reserve. On July 22, they set out on the David Boyd, the society's research vessel. Heavy ship traffic that day forced them to alter their course, though, and search an area adjacent to their original search grid, Lynn said. The brothers towed a side-scanning sonar array behind their ship. Side sonar scans starboard and port, providing a more expansive picture of the bottom than sonar mounted beneath a ship. About 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Whitefish Point on the Upper Peninsula, they picked up a line with a shadow behind it in 600 feet (182 meters) of water. They dialed up the resolution and spotted a large ship broken in two with the bow resting on the stern. Eight days later, the brothers returned to the site along with Lynn and other researchers. They deployed a submersible drone that returned clear images of a portside running light that matched a Western Reserve's starboard running light that had washed ashore in Canada after the ship went down. That light was the only artifact recovered from the ship. 'That was confirmation day,' said Lynn, the society's executive director. Darryl Ertel said that discovery gave him chills — and not in a good way. 'Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made a uneasy feeling in the back of my neck,' he said in a society news release. 'A squall can come up unexpectedly…anywhere, and anytime.' Lynn said that the ship was 'pretty torn up' but the wreckage appeared well-preserved in the frigid fresh water. The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of ships since the 1700s. Perhaps the most famous is the Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore carrier that got caught in a storm in November 1975 and went down off Whitefish Point within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Western Reserve. All hands were killed. The incident was immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' Assistant Wisconsin State Climatologist Ed Hopkins said that storm season on the lakes begins in November, when warm water meets cold air and winds blow unimpeded across open water, generating waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters). The lakes at that time can be more dangerous than the oceans because they're smaller, making it harder for ships to out-maneuver the storms, he said. But it's rare to see such gales form in August, Hopkins said. A National Weather Service report called the storm that sank the Western Reserve a 'relatively minor gale,' he noted. A Wisconsin Marine Historical Society summary of the Western Reserve sinking noted that the maritime steel age had just begun and the Western Reserve's hull might have been weak and couldn't handle the bending and twisting in the storm. The steel also becomes brittle in low temperatures like those of Great Lakes waters. The average water temperature in Lake Superior in late August is about 60 degrees (16 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The summary notes the Titanic used the same type of steel as the Western Reserve and that it may have played a role in speeding up the luxury liner's sinking.
CNN
12-03-2025
- General
- CNN
Explorers discover wreckage of cargo ship that sank in Lake Superior more than 130 years ago
Twenty years before the Titanic changed maritime history, another ship touted as the next great technological feat set sail on the Great Lakes. The Western Reserve was one of the first all-steel cargo ships to traverse the lakes. Built to break speed records, the 300-foot (91-meter) freighter dubbed 'the inland greyhound' by newspapers was supposed to be one of the safest ships afloat. Owner Peter Minch was so proud of her that he brought his wife and young children aboard for a summer joyride in August 1892. As the ship entered Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay between Michigan and Canada on Aug. 30, a gale came up. With no cargo, the ship was floating high in the water. The storm battered it until it cracked in half. Twenty-seven people perished, including the Minch family. The only survivor was wheelsman Harry W. Stewart, who swam a mile (1.6 kilometers) to shore after his lifeboat capsized. For almost 132 years, the lake hid the wreckage. In July, explorers from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society pinpointed the Western Reserve off Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The society announced the discovery Saturday at the annual Ghost Ships Festival in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. 'There's a number of concurrent stories that make this important,' the society's executive director, Bruce Lynn, said in a telephone interview. 'Most ships were still wooden. It was a technologically advanced ship. They were kind of a famous family at the time. You have this new ship, considered one of the safest on the lake, new tech, a big, big ship. (The discovery) is another way for us to keep this history alive.' Darryl Ertel, the society's marine operations director, and his brother, Dan Ertel, spent more than two years looking for the Western Reserve. On July 22, they set out on the David Boyd, the society's research vessel. Heavy ship traffic that day forced them to alter their course, though, and search an area adjacent to their original search grid, Lynn said. The brothers towed a side-scanning sonar array behind their ship. Side sonar scans starboard and port, providing a more expansive picture of the bottom than sonar mounted beneath a ship. About 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Whitefish Point on the Upper Peninsula, they picked up a line with a shadow behind it in 600 feet (182 meters) of water. They dialed up the resolution and spotted a large ship broken in two with the bow resting on the stern. Eight days later, the brothers returned to the site along with Lynn and other researchers. They deployed a submersible drone that returned clear images of a portside running light that matched a Western Reserve's starboard running light that had washed ashore in Canada after the ship went down. That light was the only artifact recovered from the ship. 'That was confirmation day,' said Lynn, the society's executive director. Darryl Ertel said that discovery gave him chills — and not in a good way. 'Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made a uneasy feeling in the back of my neck,' he said in a society news release. 'A squall can come up unexpectedly…anywhere, and anytime.' Lynn said that the ship was 'pretty torn up' but the wreckage appeared well-preserved in the frigid fresh water. The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of ships since the 1700s. Perhaps the most famous is the Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore carrier that got caught in a storm in November 1975 and went down off Whitefish Point within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Western Reserve. All hands were killed. The incident was immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' Assistant Wisconsin State Climatologist Ed Hopkins said that storm season on the lakes begins in November, when warm water meets cold air and winds blow unimpeded across open water, generating waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters). The lakes at that time can be more dangerous than the oceans because they're smaller, making it harder for ships to out-maneuver the storms, he said. But it's rare to see such gales form in August, Hopkins said. A National Weather Service report called the storm that sank the Western Reserve a 'relatively minor gale,' he noted. A Wisconsin Marine Historical Society summary of the Western Reserve sinking noted that the maritime steel age had just begun and the Western Reserve's hull might have been weak and couldn't handle the bending and twisting in the storm. The steel also becomes brittle in low temperatures like those of Great Lakes waters. The average water temperature in Lake Superior in late August is about 60 degrees (16 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The summary notes the Titanic used the same type of steel as the Western Reserve and that it may have played a role in speeding up the luxury liner's sinking.
Chicago Tribune
11-03-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Explorers discover wreckage of cargo ship that sank in Lake Superior storm more than 130 years ago
Twenty years before the Titanic changed maritime history, another ship touted as the next great technological feat set sail on the Great Lakes. The Western Reserve was one of the first all-steel cargo ships to traverse the lakes. Built to break speed records, the 300-foot (91.4-meter) freighter dubbed 'the inland greyhound' by newspapers was supposed to be one of the safest ships afloat. Owner Peter Minch was so proud of her that he brought his wife and young children aboard for a summer joyride in August 1892. As the ship entered Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay between Michigan and Canada on Aug. 30, a gale came up. With no cargo aboard, the ship was floating high in the water. The storm battered it until it cracked in half. Twenty-seven people perished, including the Minch family. The only survivor was wheelsman Harry W. Stewart, who swam a mile (1.6 kilometers) to shore after his lifeboat capsized. For almost 132 years the lake hid the wreckage. In July, explorers from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society pinpointed the Western Reserve off Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The society announced the discovery Saturday at the annual Ghost Ships Festival in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. 'There's a number of concurrent stories that make this important,' the society's executive director, Bruce Lynn, said in a telephone interview. 'Most ships were still wooden. It was a technologically advanced ship. They were kind of a famous family at the time. You have this new ship, considered one of the safest on the lake, new tech, a big, big ship. (The discovery) is another way for us to keep this history alive.' Search lasted more than two years Darryl Ertel, the society's marine operations director, and his brother, Dan Ertel, spent more than two years looking for the Western Reserve. On July 22 they set out on the David Boyd, the society's research vessel. Heavy ship traffic that day forced them to alter their course, though, and search an area adjacent to their original search grid, Lynn said. The brothers towed a side-scanning sonar array behind their ship. Side sonar scans starboard and port, providing a more expansive picture of the bottom than sonar mounted beneath a ship. About 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Whitefish Point on the Upper Peninsula, they picked up a line with a shadow behind it in 600 feet (182 meters) of water. They dialed up the resolution and spotted a large ship broken in two with the bow resting on the stern. Confirmation day Eight days later, the brothers returned to the site along with Lynn and other researchers. They deployed a submersible drone that returned clear images of a portside running light that matched a Western Reserve's starboard running light that had washed ashore in Canada after the ship went down. That light was the only artifact recovered from the ship. 'That was confirmation day,' said Lynn, the society's executive director. Darryl Ertel said that discovery gave him chills — and not in a good way. 'Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made a uneasy feeling in the back of my neck,' he said in a society news release. 'A squall can come up unexpectedly…anywhere, and anytime.' Lynn said that the ship was 'pretty torn up' but the wreckage appeared well-preserved in the frigid fresh water. The Great Lakes can be more dangerous than the oceans The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of ships since the 1700s. Perhaps the most famous is the Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore carrier that got caught in a storm in November 1975 and went down off Whitefish Point within 100 miles of the Western Reserve. All hands were killed. The incident was immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' Assistant Wisconsin State Climatologist Ed Hopkins said that storm season on the lakes begins in November, when warm water meets cold air and winds blow unimpeded across open water, generating waves as high as 30 feet (9.1 meters). The lakes at that time can be more dangerous than the oceans because they're smaller, making it harder for ships to out-maneuver the storms, he said. Brittle steel may have played a role in sinking But it's rare to see such gales form in August, Hopkins said. A National Weather Service report called the storm that sank the Western Reserve a 'relatively minor gale,' he noted. A Wisconsin Marine Historical Society summary of the Western Reserve sinking noted that the maritime steel age had just begun and the Western Reserve's hull might have been weak and couldn't handle the bending and twisting in the storm. The steel also becomes brittle in low temperatures like those of Great Lakes waters. The average water temperature in Lake Superior in late August is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The summary notes the Titanic used the same type of steel as the Western Reserve and that it may have played a role in speeding up the luxury liner's sinking. Originally Published: March 11, 2025 at 4:06 PM CDT
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'Every shipwreck has its own story': Wreck of the Western Reserve found in Lake Superior
SAULT STE. MARIE — The shipwreck of the Western Reserve, lost in 1892, has been found. After 132 years, the final resting place of the 300-foot steel steamer has been discovered roughly 60 miles northwest of Whitefish Point in Lake Superior. According to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, the shipwreck was discovered by Director of Marine Operations Darryl Ertel and his brother and First Mate, Dan Ertel, who have been looking for the Western Reserve for over two years. The brothers were piloting the David Boyd, a research vessel, during the search. Using marine sonic technology within the Boyd, the duo made the initial discovery of the shipwreck during the summer of 2024. Subsequent trips with remotely operated vehicles revealed a ship broken in two with the bow section resting on top of the stern in approximately 600 feet of water. 'We side-scan looking out a half mile per side and we caught an image on our port side. It was very small looking out that far, but I measured the shadow, and it came up about 40 feet,' said Darryl Ertel. 'So we went back over the top of the ship and saw that it had cargo hatches, and it looked like it was broken in two, one half on top of the other and each half measured with the side scan 150 feet long and then we measured the width. It was right on so we knew that we'd found the Western Reserve.' The Western Reserve was a well-known ship in its time, and was one of the first vessels on the Great Lakes made entirely of steel. The ship was built to break record speeds of cargo ships on the lakes, it was even referred to as "the inland greyhound" because of its speed. Owned by millionaire and shipping magnate Captain Peter G. Minch, the ship was considered one of the safest in the water at the time. That was part of the reason why Minch took a large portion of his family on board the ship, under the command of Captain Albert Myer, for a late summer cruise through Lake Huron in August of 1892. They were on their way to the port of Two Harbors, Minnesota. According to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, after the ship passed through Whitefish Bay, the previously calm weather turned rough, leading to the crew dropping anchor to wait out the storm. Soon after, they picked up the anchor to make their way into Lake Superior and the ship was overtaken by a strong wind. At 9 p.m. on Aug. 30, 1892, the Western Reserve began to break apart and sink. 'Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made an uneasy feeling in the back of my neck. A squall can come up unexpectedly … anywhere, and anytime,' said Darryl. The crew and passengers tried to make their way to safety in two lifeboats. One lifeboat overturned quickly, and only two crewmen from that lifeboat were able to be recovered by the second lifeboat. The Western Reserve sank within 10 minutes. The remaining crew and members of the Minch family floated in their lifeboat for around 10 hours before they passed by a steamship. Unfortunately, they were unable to attract the attention of the ship by shouting and they had no flares. Subscribe: Get unlimited access to our coverage By the next morning, the lifeboat had made it within one mile of the shoreline near the Deer Park Life-Saving Station, but the lifeboat overturned. Only one survivor, Wheelsman Harry W. Stewart of Algonac, Michigan, lived to tell the tale. In total, 27 people were killed in the tragedy. 'Every shipwreck has its own story, but some are just that much more tragic,' said Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Executive Director Bruce Lynn. 'It is hard to imagine that Peter Minch would have foreseen any trouble when he invited his wife, two young children and sister-in-law with her daughter aboard the Western Reserve for a summer cruise up the lakes. It just reinforces how dangerous the Great Lakes can be any time of year.' — Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@ This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society finds Western Reserve wreck
