The 191-foot cargo vessel Ironton collided with a grain hauler on a blustery night in September 1894, sinking both.
Now, the mystery has been solved, officials with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan, said Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained details of the discovery ahead of the announcement.
In this image taken from video provided by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the bowsprit of the Ironton is seen in Lake Huron off Michigan's east coast in a June 2021 photo. Searchers have found the long-lost Great Lakes ship that came to a tragic end. Officials with the sanctuary in Alpena, Mich,, say they've located the Ironton, a freight schooner that plunged to the bottom of Lake Huron in 1894. The Ironton collided with another vessel in rough seas.
Nearly 200 shipwrecks are believed to rest within or nearby the boundaries of the sanctuary, which includes the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena and some 4,300 square miles of northwestern Lake Huron. “It’s where the upbound and downbound shipping kind of crossed each other,” Gray said. “Busy intersections are where most accidents happen.”On the fateful night, the Ironton and another schooner barge, the Moonlight, were being towed northward from the Lake Erie town of Ashtabula, Ohio, by a steam-powered ship — a common practice then, much as a train engine pulls freight cars on a railroad. They were bound for Marquette, a port city on Lake Superior.
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Long-lost ship found in Lake Huron, confirming tragic storyEven for the Thunder Bay area, a perilous swath of northern Lake Huron off the Michigan coast that has devoured many a ship, the Ironton’s fate seems particularly cruel.
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Long-lost ship found in Lake Huron, confirming tragic storySearchers have found a long-lost Great Lakes ship that came to a tragic end
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Long-lost ship found in Lake Huron, confirming tragic storyThe 191-foot cargo vessel collided with a grain hauler on a blustery night in September 1894, sinking both. Only two crew members survived.
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Long-lost ship found in Lake Huron, confirming tragic storyEven for the Thunder Bay area, a perilous swath of northern Lake Huron off the Michigan coast that has devoured many ships, the Ironton’s fate seems particularly cruel.
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