At least twenty-nine persons died when the 350 foot S.S. Pere Marquette 18, one of the Ludington carferry fleet, sank in Lake Michigan twenty miles off the Wisconsin coast on September 9, 1910, while traveling from this port to Wisconsin. About midlake, a crewman discovered that the ship was taking on vast amounts of water, and the captain set a direct course for Wisconsin and sent a distress signal by wireless. He and the crew battled for four hours to save the boat, but she sank suddenly. All of the officers and many of the crew and passengers perished, including the first wireless operator to die in active service on the Great Lakes. The S.S. Pere Marquette 17, aided by other ships that also answered the wireless message for help, rescued more than thirty survivors but lost two of her own crew. The exact cause of the disaster remains a mystery.