Lake Superior's cold, clear waters have preserved important shipwrecks, including the Hesper, a wooden-hulled bulk freight steamer with masts built for transporting iron ore and grain on the Great Lakes during the nineteenth century. Launched on June 28, 1890, the Hesper sank on May 3, 1905, while on her way to Duluth after a late spring snowstorm and a sixty-mile-per-hour northeaster drove her off course near Beaver Bay, reducing visibility so badly that the crew lost its bearings. Tossed against a reef and battered by heavy seas, the ship was thrown over the reef and destroyed, though Captain E.H. Heaton and his crew of fifteen escaped in lifeboats, one reaching shore and the other sheltering behind the nearby island before rowing to Beaver Bay. Valued at $80,000 at the time of the wreck, the Hesper was considered a total loss, although its motors, engines, boilers, shaft, and propeller were salvaged. In 1961, two divers located the long-forgotten wreck along the harbor's western breakwaters, where part of it had been unknowingly covered during breakwater construction; despite severe hull damage, artifacts including the ship's bell, nameplate, compass, dishes, lamps, and brass fittings were recovered. The wreck offers a rare look at Great Lakes vessel construction and later became a popular scuba-diving site; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, and removing items from wrecks is now unlawful. The same rocks and reefs also trapped two other Great Lakes ships. On October 31, 1896, the Hesper was towing the schooner barge Samuel P. Ely toward Two Harbors when strong winds and high seas separated them near the ore docks; the Ely's anchors failed to hold, and it drifted into the harbor's west breakwaters, broke apart, and sank, though all of its crew survived with help from a local fisherman and a small tugboat crew. The wooden bulk freight steamer Tampa, launched in 1890 for the grain and coal trade, was 291 feet long and 1,972 tons; on November 21, 1898, while carrying 2,700 tons of coal in winds gusting above 100 miles per hour, it ran aground on a shallow reef while trying to reach shelter behind the island. Its crew escaped by lifeboat to the island and then Beaver Bay, and although salvage and repairs cost more than $50,000, the Tampa was refloated and sailed for many more years.