S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald

The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the largest ships on the Great Lakes and known as the Queen of the Lakes, carried taconite iron ore past this area to ports in Detroit, Toledo, and beyond. Its keel was laid on August 7, 1957, at Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan, and eleven months later its completed hull was launched. The ship was named for the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Northwestern owned the vessel and leased it to the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and it carried the company's C-in-a-Star logo on its smokestack. On November 10, 1975, the ship was carrying 26,116 tons of taconite ore pellets from Superior, Wisconsin, to Detroit on its last run of the year, and Captain Ernest McSorley was to retire at the end of the trip. After sailing into a severe storm on Lake Superior, with winds of over 70 miles per hour generating 25-foot waves, it entered a snow squall at about 7:10 p.m. and was never seen again. Other vessels, including the S.S. William Clay Ford and U.S. Coast Guard rescue units, searched for many hours but recovered only debris, and the cause of the loss remains unknown. In November 1974, while traveling downriver, the ship dropped anchor in the Detroit River just west of Belle Isle because navigational buoys had been removed for the season; when the crew raised the anchor chains the next morning, the starboard bow anchor remained behind after its master link failed. In July 1992, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum and members of the Detroit maritime community recovered the six-ton anchor, which stands near where it was found as a reminder of the ship, its crew, and all who have lost their lives on the Great Lakes.

Detroit, Michigan · United States