Lake Huron was the most important transportation route in Michigan’s thumb area long before wagon trails or railroads, serving Native Americans and pioneers for travel and supplies, but it also proved deadly as ships foundered in storms, collided in fog and snow, or vanished after leaving port. The Harbor Beach area holds many such wrecks, only a sampling of the vessels that have sunk in Lake Huron, with many still undiscovered. To protect these shipwrecks, twelve Michigan Underwater Preserves were created by legislation in 1980, making it a felony to remove or disturb shipwrecks or their artifacts, including the Sanilac Shores Underwater Preserve from Lexington to Forestville and The Thumb Area Bottomlands Preserve from Wagener County Park to Port Austin. Among the wrecks are freighters, steamers, schooners, tugs, and barges lost to furious storms, collisions, leaks, fire, blizzards, strandings, explosions, and heavy seas from 1818 through 1972, with some crews rescued and many others lost.