1886 shipwreck is found 'remarkably intact' in Lake Michigan using clues from ... trends now
Almost a century-and-a-half after a ship sunk in Lake Michigan, explorers have discovered the wreck 'remarkably intact' after they followed clues from newspaper clippings dating back to the 1880s.
The steamship Milwaukee sank after crashing into another ship in 1886. It was found some 360 feet beneath the surface of the lake, announced explorers from the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association over the weekend at the organization annual film festival.
Researchers say they first located the wreck last June using sonar technology. They further examined the sunken ship with a remote operated vehicle that was able to chart the depths of the lake.
According to CBS News, Valerie van Heest - who created the search grid used to find the ship - said that it was 'newspaper accounts ts of the sinking that provided the clues we needed to locate the shipwreck.'
The only known photograph of the Milwaukee steamship that sunk on Lake Michigan nearly 140 years ago
Papers from July 1886 described a course set by the Milwaukee to Muskegon, Michigan, where it would pick up lumber that it would then haul to Chicago.
The course was very similar to that of the C. Hickox, which departed Muskegon for Chicago on the same July day, with a load of lumber and a schooner barge in tow.
The Milwaukee was at the time owned by businessman Lyman Gates Mason, whose lumber company accounted for the product the ship would be transporting.
The 135-foot ship originally had three decks, including one designed for passengers. But, following the Wall Street panic of 1873, many ships like the Milwaukee were repurposed to accommodate fewer passengers and more cargo.
Mason bought the Milwaukee in 1883 and converted to exclusively haul lumber - though it is unclear exactly how he altered the ship, because there are no known historical records or photographs of the changes made.
On the day of the crash, the lake was calm, though smoke from wildfires out of Wisconsin hung in the air.
The ships wound up on a collision
