At Pilot Island, the wrecks of three wooden sailing vessels lie together: the J.E. Gilmore, a two-masted schooner built in 1867 by Asa Wilcox at Three Mile Bay, N.Y.; the Forest, a scow-schooner built in 1857 by David Lester at Newport, Mich., and rebuilt in 1880; and the A.P. Nichols, a three-masted schooner built in 1861 by Bailey Brothers at Madison Dock, Ohio. On the night of Oct. 28, 1891, the Forest entered Death's Door en route from Chicago to Nahma, Mich., when a gale drove it onto the reef at Pilot Island, and the next day its crew of five rowed ashore to the lighthouse. The following fall, on Oct. 17, the Gilmore, bound from Chicago to Elk Rapids, Mich., entered the passage in heavy, shifting winds and was blown onto the reef, where its crew remained aboard through the storm. On Oct. 28, fierce winds and blinding snow struck the Nichols on its way from Chicago to Escanaba, Mich.; the storm tore apart its rigging and drove it onto the rocks near the other two vessels. In a daring rescue, the lighthouse crew helped the sailors leap from the rolling Nichols onto the icy deck of the Forest to reach Pilot Island. For several years the violence of Death's Door battered the three stranded schooners and scattered their remains in all directions, and their tangled wreckage now lets divers visit three victims of the passage in a single dive. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.