The PS Lady Elgin was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamship that sank in Lake Michigan off the fledgling town of Port Clinton, Illinois, whose geography is now divided between Highland Park and Highwood, Illinois, after she was rammed in a gale by the schooner Augusta in the early hours of September 8, 1860. The passenger manifest was lost with the collision, but the sinking of Lady Elgin resulted in the loss of about 300 lives in what was called "one of the greatest marine horrors on record". Four years after the disaster, a new rule required sailing vessels to carry running lights. The Lady Elgin disaster remains the greatest loss of life on open water in the history of the Great Lakes.
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was a DC-4 operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle when it disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950. The flight was carrying 55 passengers and three crew members; the loss of all 58 aboard made it the deadliest commercial airliner accident in America at the time.
The history of commercial passenger shipping on the Great Lakes is long but uneven. It reached its zenith between the mid-19th century and the 1950s. As early as 1844, palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the Great Lakes. By 1900, fleets of relatively luxurious passenger steamers plied the waters of the lower lakes, especially the major industrial centres of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto.
SS Comet was a steamship that operated on the Great Lakes. Comet was built in 1857 as a wooden-hulled propeller-driven cargo vessel that was soon adapted to carry passengers. It suffered a series of maritime accidents prior to its final sinking in 1875 causing the loss of ten lives. It became known as the only treasure ship of Lake Superior because she carried 70 tons of Montana silver ore when it sank. The first attempts to salvage its cargo in 1876 and 1938 were unsuccessful. Comet was finally salvaged in the 1980s when the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society illegally removed artifacts from the wreck. The artifacts are now the property of the State of Michigan and are on display as a loan to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The fate of her silver ore cargo is unknown. Comet's wreck is now protected by the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve as part of an underwater museum.
SS Myron was a wooden steamship built in 1888. She spent her 31-year career as lumber hooker, towing schooner barges on the Great Lakes. She sank in 1919, in a Lake Superior November gale. All of her 17 crew members were killed but her captain survived. He was found drifting on wreckage near Ile Parisienne. Her tow, the Miztec, survived. Myron defied the adage that Lake Superior "seldom gives up her dead" when all 17 crewmembers were found frozen to death wearing their life jackets. Local residents chopped eight of Myron's sailors from the ice on the shore of Whitefish Bay and buried them at the Mission Hill Cemetery in Bay Mills Township, Michigan.
The Wisconsin was an iron-hulled package steamer built in 1881 that sank in 1929 in Lake Michigan off the coast of Kenosha, Wisconsin, United States. In 2009 the shipwreck site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Manistee was a packet steamer that disappeared on Lake Superior on November 15 or 16, 1883. She was presumed to have sunk, with no surviving crew or passengers. The cause remains a mystery, and her wreckage has not been found.
SS Erie L. Hackley was a passenger and cargo ship that operated in Lake Michigan from 1882 to 1903. The ship sank in a storm near Green Island on 3 October 1903.
The Phoenix was a steamship that burned on Lake Michigan on 21 November 1847, with the loss of at least 190 but perhaps as many as 250 lives. The loss of life made this disaster, in terms of loss of life from the sinking of a single vessel, the fourth-worst tragedy in the history of the Great Lakes.
The SS Pere Marquette was the world's first steel train ferry. It sailed on Lake Michigan and provided a service between the ports of Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, for the Pere Marquette Railway from 1897 to 1930. The railway used the name Pere Marquette for many of its ships and ferries, adding a number to the end of the name.
Events from the year 1895 in Michigan.
The SS Lakeland was an early steel-hulled Great Lakes freighter that sank on December 3, 1924, into 205 feet (62 m) of water on Lake Michigan near Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin, United States, after she sprang a leak. On July 7, 2015, the wreck of the Lakeland was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The SS Atlanta was a wooden hulled Great Lakes steamer that sank in Lake Michigan off the coast of Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, United States, after a failed attempt of her being towed to shore ultimately killing 5 out of her 7 crew members on board. Her wreckage still remains at the bottom of the lake, and on November 6, 2017, the wreck of the Atlanta was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The SS J.M. Allmendinger was a wooden-hulled steam barge built in 1883, that ran aground during a storm on November 26, 1895, on Lake Michigan, off the coast of Mequon, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. On October 11, 2018, the remains of J.M. Allmendinger were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
City of Muskegon was a steel-hulled sidewheel package and passenger steamer, built in 1881 for service on the Great Lakes, which was wrecked early on 28 October 1919 when it struck a pier at Muskegon, Michigan, at 0430 hrs., in a 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) gale, sinking in a period estimated between four and ten minutes. Nine crew and six passengers were killed. There are conflicting sources on the number on board, however. One account listed 37 passengers and a crew of 35.
SS Pere Marquette 18 was a steel-hulled Great Lakes train ferry that served on Lake Michigan from her construction in 1902 to her sinking in 1910.
SS Vernon was a wooden-hulled American passenger and package freighter that sank in a Lake Michigan storm on October 29, 1887, near Two Rivers, Wisconsin, with the loss of between 36 and 50 lives, making her one of the deadliest shipwrecks ever to have occurred in Wisconsin. Only one of the people on board survived.
SS Cayuga was a steel-hulled American package freighter in service between 1889 and 1895. She was built in 1889 in Cleveland, Ohio, by the Globe Iron Works Company for the Lehigh Valley Transit Company of Buffalo, New York. One of five identical sister ships, Cayuga entered service in 1889, carrying package freight between Buffalo and Chicago, Illinois, also making stops in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Gladstone, Michigan. Prior to her sinking, Cayuga was involved in two accidents. In the first in 1890, when she went aground in a gale just outside of Buffalo harbour; six tugboats managed to pull her free that same day. The second accident occurred in 1891, when Cayuga was involved in a collision with the package freighter Delaware near Cheboygan, Michigan.
SS Ironsides was a wooden-hulled American package freighter in service between 1864 and 1873. She was built in 1864 in Cleveland, Ohio, by either Ira Lafrinier or Quayle & Martin. She was built for John E. Turner, also of Cleveland, and operated as part of the Cleveland & Lake Superior Line. She had an identical sister ship named Lac La Belle. Ironsides operated between Cleveland and Lake Superior for a number of years, and was sold several times. In 1869, she was sold to Nathan Englemann of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and operated between Milwaukee and Grand Haven, Michigan. In 1871, she became part of the Englemann Transportation Company.
PS Keystone State was a wooden-hulled American paddle steamer in service between 1849 and 1861. She was built in 1848 in Buffalo, New York, by Bidwell & Banta for ship-owner Charles M. Reed of Erie, Pennsylvania, and operated as part of his "Chicago Line". A luxuriously furnished palace steamer, she operated between Buffalo and Chicago, Illinois, while also making stops at various other ports. She was built for the passenger and package freight trade, frequently carrying both wealthy passengers and European immigrants who desired to settle in the Midwestern United States. Due to the Panic of 1857, Keystone State and several other paddle steamers were laid up. When the American Civil War began in 1861; she was refurbished, and put back into service.
United States