The history of organized maritime rescue in the United States reaches back to 1789, when Congress authorized the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lighthouse Service, but the Lifesaving Service, established in 1878, became especially noted for uncommon heroics. Before that, many Great Lakes cities organized local lifesavers to aid mariners in distress, and in 1854 Congress appropriated $12,500 for lifeboats and equipment at 25 locations along Lake Michigan and elsewhere on the Great Lakes. That early effort was poorly organized: crews had little or no training, equipment was often lost, stations were frequently placed in remote areas, and actual rescues were often ineffective. Major disasters underscored the problem, including the loss of the Lady Elgin in Lake Michigan about 16 miles north of Chicago on a stormy night in September 1860, when another ship rammed and sank her, killing 267 people, among them William Farnsworth, one of the founders of the City of Sheboygan, and the burning of the Goodrich boat Seabird off Waukegan, Illinois, on April 9, 1868, when only two of 102 passengers and crew members survived, both from Sheboygan. These and other calamities on the Great Lakes and the sea coast made clear that rescue operations needed stronger management. Supervisors, or keepers, were appointed, but they were often political appointees with little knowledge of rescue work or seafaring, and experienced surfmen often refused to work with them. An 1874 investigation concluded that permanent lifesaving stations, manned by skilled surfmen and properly equipped, offered the solution. First class stations were estimated to cost $5,302 to build and equip, second class stations about $4,790, and most Great Lakes stations were second class. The region was divided into supervisory areas; area supervisors were paid $1,000 per year, station keepers $200 per year, crews at Class 1 stations no more than $40 per month, and mostly volunteer crews at Class 2 stations $10 per rescue, but only if lives were saved. Keepers had to live at their stations at all times, and crewmen during the shipping season. The system proved so effective that the Lifesaving Service was created as a separate organization under the Department of the Treasury by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878 for the sole purpose of rescuing mariners in distress. In 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lifesaving Service were united to form the United States Coast Guard. The dedication of these rescuers became legendary, captured in a station keeper's reply as his crew rowed into a gale toward a foundering vessel: "The book only says we have to go out. It don't say nothing about coming back!" The Sheboygan Lifesaving Station was founded in 1877 just south of today's Coast Guard Station, whose functions now include search and rescue, law enforcement on the waterways, safe boating classes, and addressing environmental problems that affect water quality.