Off Outer Island lies the wreck of the Pretoria, one of the largest wooden vessels ever to sail the Great Lakes. Built in 1900 at Davidson Shipyard in West Bay City, Mich., the three-masted wooden schooner-barge was 338 feet long with a 44-foot beam. On September 1, 1905, Captain Charles Smart and nine crew left the Allouez ore docks in Superior, Wis., in tow of the steamer Venezuela, bound for Chicago with a cargo of iron ore. The next morning, 30 miles northeast of Outer Island, the two vessels met a ferocious gale. After Pretoria's steering gear failed, they turned toward the shelter of the Apostle Islands, but the tow line snapped before they arrived, leaving Pretoria helpless in heavy seas. In poor visibility, Venezuela lost sight of the vessel. Captain Smart lowered anchors, but they could not hold in the rocky bottom. Seas tore away the hatch covers and the vessel began taking on water. The anchors finally held a mile and a half off Outer Island, but by mid-afternoon a large wave had ripped off a deck house and the waves were tearing at the deck. Smart then ordered the crew into the lifeboat. Surf near shore capsized it and hurled the men into the air. Outer Island lighthouse keeper John Irvine repeatedly entered the waves and rescued five men, while five others drowned. Today the broken hull lies in 55 feet of water amid a large debris field. The donkey boiler, salvaged in the 1960s, was returned to the site in 2001, the anchor chain now lines Bayfield’s waterfront as ornamental fencing, and the anchors are displayed at the Madeline Island Historical Museum.