Colonists erected the first American lighthouse in 1716 on Little Brewster Island at Boston, using catoptric reflecting optics developed in England. In 1823 Augustin Fresnel designed, tested and built a unique new lens that used the principles of refraction (dioptrics) to bend and redirect light through a glass prism.
The Courdouvan Lighthouse in France received Fresnel's first lens, with bulls-eye lenses that bent light into a central beam. Mirrors on top and bottom reflected light that spilled beyond the lens. The light could be seen from more than 30 miles away.
After his first lens was being used, Fresnel started working on a better lens. The new system was called catadioptric because it combined both reflection (catoptrics) and refraction (dioptrics). His new lens would revolutionize lighthouse optics throughout the world.
The United States was slow to adopt the Fresnel lens. The Lewis lamps had been used exclusively in American lighthouses since 1810 and proved cost effective. However, sailors complained they were too dim once they witnessed the much greater brightness of the Fresnel lens along the French coast. In 1838 Congress ordered two Fresnel lenses from France to test at the twin Navesink Highlands Lighthouses in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
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| Third Order Fresnel Lens |
This third order Fresnel lens first shown brightly at the Big Sable Point Light, built in 1867. The yellow brick structure decayed over the decades, and in 1900 the tower was clad in steel and painted red and white to serve as a day marker. The Coast Guard later chose a black and white scheme, its color today, intended to be even more visibly distinctive. [Check out my blog post on the Point Betsie Lighthouse for more information on the different lighthouse lenses.]
The Great Lakes First Carferries ~~
Railroads were quick to adopt the cost saving technology of carferries for river crossings. In 1858 the Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway extended its tracks to the bank of the Niagara River and built the International, the Great Lakes first carferry. It was open on both ends to eliminate the need to turn in the narrow waterway. By the 1860s railroads were crossing the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, carrying passengers in addition to rail cars. Carferries began evolving. They were larger, made of steel, and used propellers rather than side wheels.
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| The International |
Lake Michigan's First Carferry: In 1892, the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railroad began operating the Ann Arbor No. 1, the first carferry capable of crossing the open waters of the Great Lakes. It ran between Frankfort, Michigan, and Kewaunee, Wisconsin. Although its design was revolutionary, it was far from superior for the long lake crossing. Improvements would be made in future carferries, with the Pere Marquette Railroad leading the way.
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Carferry technology first reached Lake Michigan in 1888 when the Michigan Central Railway built the St. Ignace to join rail lines at the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsula.
The demand for the cross-lake steamer service and the time consuming and expensive break bulk process led to delays at Ludington beginning in the 1880s. Railroad officials considered adopting a revolutionary concept, pioneered in Scotland and already in operation crossing rivers in America, to increase the speed and lower the cost of waterborne cargo transportation: vessels that could carry loaded rail cars on their decks.
The Transport, built in 1888 to carry loaded rail cars across the Detroit River, was among several open-ended carferries crossing short expanses of water during the last half of the 19th century.
Could you be a Dock Walloper? Dock Wallopers had to regularly lift bags of grain, barrels of salt, and crates of general merchandise, moving them from train to warehouse and then warehouse to steamers. The work was difficult and time consuming.
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| Dock Wollopers |
Break Bulk Shipping: The transportation of bagged, barreled or crated cargo is known as "break bulk" shipping. At Ludington, railroad laborers called "dock wallopers" used their muscle power to load bags, barrels, and crates. Once the ship reached its destination across the lake, dock wallopers in Wisconsin would reverse the process. This type of shipping service was common at virtually all the Great Lakes ports in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1903 the Pere Marquette Railroad announced it would no longer its "Black Boats" causing concern for shippers, particularly, salt producers and travelers who had relied on the cross-lake service for two decades. Guz Kitzinger of the Manistee Salt & Lumber Company acquired three steamers of the Pere Marquette Railroad and formed the Manistee, Ludington & Milwaukee Transportation Company.
The Pere Marquette Line Steamers carried freight and passengers out of Ludington for three decades alongside the Pere Marquette Railroad's carferries. The steamers were already aged when purchased. Some became too old for lake service, while others were sold as business declined, and a few met with disaster. In 1934 the Wisconsin & Michigan Steamship Company acquired the remaining steamers when it merged with the Pere Marquette line. Eventually most of the steamers were lost.
In 1947 the C&O Railway absorbed the Pere Marquette Railroad and took over the operation of all of its carferries. The railroad's already beloved sleeping kitten mascot, "Chessie," began appearing in carferry advertising, schedules and merchandise. The idea for Chessie was developed in 1933 by Lionel Probert, Assistant to the C&O President, as a marketing tool at the depths of the Depression.
Soon after the success of Chessie, the railroad introduced her husband, "Peake" (as in "Chessie's Peake"), and their twins Nip and Tuck. During World War II Peake was shown as a decorated war veteran returning home from overseas.
The sleeping kitten mascot became the logo for the Chessie System Railroads, 40 years after it was first launched, when the C&O, Baltimore & Ohio, and Western Maryland Railroads merged in 1973. By 1980 Chessie Systems became CSX Transportation, now one of the four major railroad systems left in the country.
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| Captain Van Dyke's Ghost |
Captain Van Dyke loved the maritime life and surrounded himself with his collection of nautical items, now a priceless record of life on Lake Michigan. His cabin has been meticulously recreated here using many objects and photographs from his collection.
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| Captain Wallace Van Dyke poses proudly in the starboard half of his cabin used as an office |
Peer into the captain’s cabin in the “Texas” on the Pere Marquette 21 to catch a glimpse of the “ghost” of Captain Wallace Van Dyke. He enjoys sharing his amazing collection of maritime memorabilia that he displays in his cabin, where he died of a heart attack in 1936, he will recount the inspiring story of his life and career.
Next we headed to the second floor where the Age of Sail, PM 22: Plotting the Carferry, The Armistice Day Storm and The Legendary 44-foot Motor Lifeboat are highlighted.
Spanish Ships ~~ The development of sailing ships on the Mediterranean Sea greatly influenced the design of the Spanish, Portuguese, and French vessels that signified the great Age of Discovery as European nations pursued exploration of the seas beyond Europe. Early vessels had square-rigged sails that were perpendicular to their centerline, most effective with following winds. As explorers sought to venture far from Europe, they devised new rigs. The lateen sail may have originated on the Mediterranean as the first generally adopted "for and aft" sail, meaning it straddled the centerline of the vessel from bow to stern. The lateen rig allowed vessels to sail into the wind, important for expeditions from Europe to the "New World," which ran opposite prevailing winds.
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| Nuestra Senora de Atocha |
More than a century after Columbus landed on the Caribbean Islands, Spain still reaped great wealth from the colonies it had established there. In 1620 the 110-foot Nuestra Senora de Atocha was built at Havana specifically as an armed galleon to protect Spanish vessels returning to Spain with treasure. It would soon become one of the world's most famous shipwrecks.
In 1622 a 28-fleet from Spain delivered supplies to the New World colonies and took aboard a vast cargo of copper, silver, gold, and gems destined for Spain. The treasure-laden Atocha, the heaviest-armed, took its place to defend the rear of the fleet when it departed Havana in September. Two days out, a hurricane sent the Atocha to the bottom off the Florida Keys with four other galleons and the loss of 260 lives.
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| Mel Fisher |
Spain attempted to salvage the Atocha's treasure, but 350 years would pass before the wreck was found. American treasure hunter Mel Fisher and his team recovered its "mother lode," worth $450 million. (Mel Fisher Museum.)
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| Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria |
In 1492 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus commanded a voyage for Spain westward across the Atlantic to seek a new trade route to Asia. He used the caravels Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, now among the most famous ships in the world because of the discoveries made with them.
The Santa Maria, the largest and slowest of the three vessels, served as flagship, traveling about 100 miles per day. On October 7 Columbus spotted land, which he presumed was Japan (but actually was the Bahamas). Continuing, the expedition reached China (actually Cuba). By December 5 the fleet anchored off an island that Columbus named Insula Hispana, meaning Spanish Land (actually Haiti). On Christmas Day the Santa Maria grounded and sank at Haiti. Columbus left its crew there to build a fort called La Navidad, Spanish for Christmas.
Columbus returned on the Nina to the small Spanish seaport of Palos de la Frontera where his voyage had begun. He delivered a cargo of gold, plants and animals and received a hero's welcome. Columbus led three more expeditions to the land across the ocean before his death in 1504. Although he may have realized he had found a "New World," not Asia, credit for the discovery was given to another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, after a Portuguese expedition in the early 1500s.
Anchor Hoys, also called chain boats, were based on the Dutch "hoey," a small but wide boat with a simple one-masted gaff rig. These vessels were common during the early career of the USS Constitution. Its function was to service larger, less maneuverable ships. An Anchor Hoy would carry a ship's anchor out and then drop it so the ship could "worm" (pull) itself to the anchor. They were equipped with a winch to retrieve an anchor. Anchor hoys also served as small harbor transports, replenishing the stores and freshwater of moored vessels, as well as munitions to naval vessels. It is possible that the common maritime greeting "ahoy" originated from sailors hailing anchor hoys for assistance.
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| USS Constitution |
The USS Constitution is a 203-foot long, three-masted frigate of the United States Navy, renowned for defeating five British vessels during the War of 1812. It is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat. Launched in Boston in 1797, the Constitution was one of six original frigates authorized by Congress to protect American shipping from the Barbary States of North Africa. George Washington suggested its name to honor the nation's founding document.
The Constitution became known as "Old Ironsides" during battle with British ship Guerriere in August 1812. When a British cannonball bounced harmlessly off the 32" thick oak hull of the Constitution, a crewmember is said to have exclaimed, "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron." Four months later, the Constitution, engaged the British Frigate HMS Java off Brazil. During the two hour battle, Java was demasted and had to surrender.
Scheduled to be dismantled in 1830, the publication Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem "Old Ironsides," aroused national sentiment that the vessel should remain in service. After an expensive overhaul completed in 1831, the Constitution remained in various ways for the navy.
British Ships ~~ The British initially modeled its shipbuilding after Dutch and Norwegian practices. Then in the 12th century, British fighters returned from the Crusades with knowledge of Mediterranean ship and rigging design, leading to a number of developments that would propel the small island nation to the forefront of global exploration and naval power. The Venetian buss, a two- or three-masted vessel using a lateen rig, became the model upon which further innovations were based. As trade increased, the demand for larger and swifter ships did, as well. Eventually the British, as well as other Europeans, would combine the northern square rig and the Mediterranean lateen rig to create a two- or three-masted vessel known as a carrack, that would dominate European shipping from the 14th to 17th century.
The first major British contribution to sailing ship innovation occurred when English shipbuilders discovered that doing away with the carrack's high forecastle resulted in a much faster and maneuverable vessel, a craft that would become known as a galleon.
Beginning in the 17th century, British shipbuilders began to apply scientific methodology to their designs at the time Britain was establishing colonies in Indian and elsewhere. This led to the construction of large, armed, multi-decked, square-rigged vessels capable of carrying supplies, passengers, and valuable cargos to and from the colonies. As Great Britain's commercial trading grew, so did its navy to protect the nation's colonial commerce.
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| HMS Blandford |
The HMS Blandford was a 6th rate, 20-cannon vessel, classified as among the smallest of the British Royal Navy warships. They were essential as convoy escorts, fleet dispatch vessels, fleet scouts and fire-support vessels for amphibious assaults. There were three nearly identical 6th rate, 20-cannon vessels all named Blandford built for the Royal Navy. The first, built in 1711, sank and was replaced by a second in 1720, and then after its loss, a third in 1741. The ship pictured above was built in 1996 as a replica of the Blandford, named Grand Turk, to be used in the British television series Hornblower. It was purchased in 2010 by a French company and renamed Etoile du Roy.
Next is PM 22: Plotting the Carferry: Next we stepped into the pilothouse to give a go at piloting the ship. I'm not sure it was working because even though we followed the directions, we got an error message saying we did not follow the directions.
This ship's wheel is from the City of Midland 41 and is similar to the Pere Marquette 22's wheel. The ship's wheel is connected by a long cable to the rudder located underwater at the stern of the ship. When the wheel is turned to starboard (right), the rudder moves, and the bow turns right. The opposite occurs when the wheel is turned to port (left).
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| Telegraph |
The telegraph is used as a communicating device to transfer orders of change in speed or direction from the bridge to the engine control room. The lever can be moved over different speed positions for ahead and astern direction.
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| Binnacle - the ship's compass |
Following World War II, rail and tourist traffic increased on the carferries. In the early 1950s, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway considered building yet another carferry. The cost proved prohibitive, so the railroad instead modernized and lengthened the Pere Marquette 21 and 22.
On November 11, 1940, the anniversary of the Armistice ending World War I, the West Coast windstorm moves east and collides with two other storms. Midwesterners are caught off guard when the unusually warm weather suddenly turns into a blizzard.
The collapse of Washington's new Tacoma Narrows Bridge in high winds on November 7, 1940, marked the genesis of a storm that would kill some 160 people, including 64 sailors on Lake Michigan.
While building the third longest suspension bridge in the United States between 1938 and 1940, contractors realized it swayed wildly in the wind. They aptly named it "Galloping Gertie." It opened in July 1940.
Before engineers could address the issue, a November wind created an "aeroelastic flutter" that resulted in the bridge's collapse. Barney Elliott, the owner of a local camera shop, captured footage of the bridge and Leonard Coatsworth's unsuccessful attempt to rescue his disabled dog, Tubby, from his stranded car.
One week after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office and as a new war rages in Europe, people gather on Armistice Day to remember those who gave their lives in the "war to end all wars" 22 years earlier. But Armistice Day would soon be remembered for one of the deadliest storms in Midwest history, and Veterans Day would replace it to honor those who fought in all wars.
On November 11, 1940, the anniversary of the Armistice ending World War I, the West Coat windstorm moves east and collides with two other storms. Midwesterners are caught off guard when the unusually warm weather suddenly turns into a blizzard.
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| Chicago at 4pm |
The staff at the Chicago office of the U.S. Weather Bureau had worked only the standard half-day on Sunday and are shocked to see on Monday morning that the West Coast storm has moved southeast across Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado and DID NOT die out in the Rocky Mountains as expected. It collided over Iowa with an Artic cold front and a southern warm front. Barometric pressure is dropping rapidly, lower than ever previously recorded.
Meteorologists at Chicago realize that the apex of the storm where the three fronts met has created a "Weather Bomb." Rising warm air and falling cold air are fueling cyclonic winds. By their calculations, the 1000-mile-wide wind storm will hit Chicago by noon, then move straight up the center of Lake Michigan, creating massive waves, freezing temperatures, and snow.
The Weather Bureau immediately issues storm warnings throughout the Midwest. By 6:30 am Coast Guard and weather stations along the shores of Lake Michigan raise storm flags as warnings to the many ships in transit without communications.
Livestock died. Sleet falls so hard it encases cattle, sheep, and hogs in ice. Livestock in the open plains perish by the hundreds. Some animals freeze standing upright. Farmers risk their own lives to save their livestock. They spend hours in the storm, many suffering frostbite, to round up their animals and attempt to get them into shelter.
Hundreds of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota duck hunters along the Mississippi River, its tributaries, and marshes watch in bewilderment as the sky turns a strange shade of orange. The wind comes up suddenly, the temperature drops abruptly, and whitecaps form on the water. To the delight of the hunters, thousands of ducks fill the skies to escape the weather. Seeing this unexpected bounty, many hunters decide to stay to bag their limit before shooting hours end at 4 pm.
In less than two hours, temperatures plummet from 60 degrees to below zero. Rain turns to ice, then snow, and soon a blizzard is howling. Some hunters realize the danger, give up, and go home. Others are so caught up in the excitement of the hunt, they fail to realize just how bad the weather is. As the wind increases, swells on the water overturn some duck boats. Shallow rivers freeze so fast that other boats are trapped by the ice. Blinding snow obliterates any paths back to the hunters' homes or vehicles.
Many hunters drown or freeze trying to escape the subzero blizzard. Hundreds more hunker down atop mud bars, on islands, or underneath their boats. Those with matches build little fires for warmth. Although estimates vary, by the next morning as many as 50 duck hunters are found dead throughout the Midwest in the worst duck hunting disaster in U.S. history.
In Minnesota, a record 16.8 inches of snow falls in 24 hours, creating drifts over 10 feet high. Two passenger trains collide in Watkins, Minnesota due to low visibility in the blizzard. Both engineers are killed, and many passengers are injured, including duck hunters who are returning home on the train.
Just after noon the temperature drops almost 40 degrees in the Midwest. Cyclonic winds build and begin moving north. Rain turns to sleet. Parades are halted, and people seek shelter. Commercial buildings, homes, and barns in Michigan and Illinois are torn apart or flattened by the storm. Trees are uprooted. Power lines fall. Hundreds of people are injured by flying debris, and dozens die throughout the Midwest.
As snowfall escalates in Wisconsin and Minnesota, public transportation grinds to a halt. Hundreds of passenger automobiles are involved in collisions and multi-vehicle accidents or are run off the road. Many motorists abandon their cars, and others are trapped in them. Dozens of motorists suffer frostbite, and some die stranded in their cars.
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| Novadoc |
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| Novadoc struggling in the storm |
As the Novadoc steams northeast off Grand Haven, the storm strikes with 75-mile an hour winds from the southwest. Waves build quickly to some 30 feet, creating a dangerous following sea (waves coming from behind the boat). It is difficult for Captain Steip to hold his course, because each wave causes the boat to yaw (turn sideways). If the waves get much higher, they could overcome the vessel or force the bow under. On Tuesday morning the Coast Guard spotted the stranded Novadoc and a survivor waving a sheet. It's too rough to rescue the boat.
The injured survivors realize no one is coming to their aid, and they will spend another cold night aboard ship. The men burn pieces of furniture to keep warm. The men in the stern are suffering from exposure and must constantly bail incoming water. Their only solace is seeing bonfires on shore indicating they are not forgotten. By Wednesday morning the waters calm down, and all 17 survivors on the Novadoc are rescued.
The Novadoc is just one example of what happened to the ships on Lake Michigan. There were other ships on the lake during the storm and lives were lost and ships destroyed.
Lastly, we learn about the Legendary 44-foot Motor Lifeboat. In the late 1950s the Coast Guard looked for a replacement for the 36-foot motor lifeboat that had become its workhorse. That came with the Coast Guard's most legendary lifeboat, the 44, named simply for its length.
The 44 had a particularly strong, steel hull and aluminum superstructure, twin diesel engines and rudders, and improved accommodations for captain and crew. it was self-righting and self-bailing, making it virtually unsinkable and well adapted to operate in rough seas. The 44 proved so efficient and effective that other nations adopted its design, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, and Italy. The Coast Guard retired the last active 44 at Chatham, Massachusetts in 2009.
The Ludington Coast Guard Station received a new 44-foot motor lifeboat in September 1965 to replace the 36-foot motor lifeboat that had been its primary search-and-rescue craft for almost a decade. The new vessel, named CG-44345, had a cruising range of 150 miles, could carry a crew of three and up to 21 survivors, and, like all 44s, had state-of-the-art electronics, including radar. To accommodate the much larger vessel, the launch ramp from the station's boathouse was removed in 1966 and replaced by a basin in which CG 44345 and other rescue craft could moor. The basin in still in use today.
After over 35 years of service, rigid-hull, inflatable Zodiac boats replaced the 44s, and the Coast Guard retired the CG 44345 in December 2000. The City of Ludington acquired CG 44345 from the federal government as an historical artifact, and the vessel was returned to Ludington in May 2005.
Leaving the second floor, we traveled up to the third floor to see the Mysteries Beneath the Waves, Steaming into the Future, the Coast Guard of Ludington, and Lumbering Days on Pere Marquette Lake.
The Mysteries Beneath the Waves are the many shipwrecks that occurred on the Great Lakes. In the Great Lakes, thousands of ships have ended their careers when they stranded near shore or foundered in deep water as a result of storm, fire, ice, failure, or mishap. The cold, fresh water preserves these shipwrecks as historical time capsules, holding important information about their construction, use, cargoes, crew, and passengers. A shipwreck also:
...provides a physical link to the past.
...piques interest to learn about history.
...provides evidence to solve the mystery of the loss.
...serves as a recreational diving site.
The nonprofit Michigan Shipwreck Research Association researches, discovers, documents and interprets Lake Michigan shipwrecks since its founding in 2001 by experienced divers and historians. Many of the discoveries made by MSRA in partnership with explorer David Trotter and author Clive Cussler of the National Underwater Marine Agency are featured here. (Jim's favorite author is Clive Cussler because he wrote about historical items and turned them into a fictional history about the items.)
At least 5,000 vessels have been lost on the Great Lakes since 1679. At least 01,000 ships have been lost on Lake Michigan; the majority stranded in shallow water near shore. In fact, over 200 vessels grounded along Lake Michigan's coast, most of the victims of storms, some poor seamanship, and others ever-changing sandbars. The pounding surf broke up these ships, scattering timbers and cargoes along the beach where the reusable debris was often carted off by scavengers.
Laws governing shipwrecks: In response to the common practice of divers taking artifacts off shipwrecks since diving began, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, which turned over ownership and management of abandoned shipwrecks to the states in which they lay.
Michigan and other states then wrote laws, or clarified previously established laws, that made illegal the recovery of artifacts from an abandoned wreck without a permit.
Volumes have been written about Le Griffon, a French bark that disappeared in 1679 while en route from northern Lake Michigan to Lake Erie with a cargo of furs, but a mystery lingers. The bark was built under the direction of French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, who sought to expand French Territory in North America and establish a fur-trading enterprise.
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| Rene-Robert Cavelier |
Since 1805, there have been 18 publicized Le Griffon discovery claims, most proven unfounded. Many people prefer to believe the wreck still awaits discovery offshore. Explorer Steve Liebert made the most recent discovery claim in 2001. He announced that a 20-foot long wooden timber, protruding from the lake bottom in northern Lake Michigan, was connected to the buried hull of Le Griffon. He initiated a lawsuit, claiming ownership of the wreck. (Experts believe the timber is a stake from a Native American fishing device called a "pound net" or an early utility pole.)
After more than a decade of legal wrangling, in 2013, Michigan issued a permit to excavate. Nothing was found buried under the timber, yet Liebert maintains that the wreck of Le Griffon lies nearby.
There are three main theories that have emerged regarding the first loss of Le Griffon, the first shipwreck on the Upper Great Lakes: (1) Native Americans captured the ship and killed the crew; (2) the ship foundered offshore in a storm on Lake Michigan or Lake Huron; or (3) the ship wrecked along shore in a storm on Lake Michigan or Lake Huron.
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Of all Le Griffon discovery claims, it seems likely that a wreck, six skeletons, and artifacts dating from the 1600s, found in 1927 along the shores of the Mississippi Strait on Manitoulin Island in Canada were Le Griffon and its crew.
Modern day mysteries can be as perplexing as century-old ones. By all accounts, this 32-foot cabin cruiser and its experienced crew should have been able to survive in rough seas. On September 25, 1980, three employees at Bay Haven Marina in Holland, Michigan, and a friend set out from Chicago at 4pm to deliver the boat to Holland on behalf of its fourth owner. As night fell, the seas grew rough. Worried, the families tried unsuccessfully to hail the boat with a marine radio. In the early morning, they reported the Sea Mar III missing. Three days passed before the Coast Guard found a trail of debris, including a life ring, confirming the loss of the boat, but the bodies of the crew were never found.
Holland attorney John L. Cote, who knew the victims to be competent sailors, discovered that the Trojan Boat Company had become aware that the design and placement of its stern air vents scooped water into the bilge when running fast in high seas. However, they delayed notice for several years and then only sent letters identifying the problem to dealers and first owners, never making the recall public.
After a six-year investigation and a three-week trial, Jack Cote was able to prove Trojan liable for its defective product, a ground-breaking verdict, considering he had neither the boat nor any witnesses to offer evidence. The discovery of the wreck may confirm the court's findings and allow for the proper burial of the four victims.
Amazingly, 26 years later, Craig Rich of MSRA found a second life ring in an antique store and learned that it had been found soon after the accident by a beachcomber. Jack Cote is pictured holding both life rings.
The loss of the steamer Chicora and its crew holds rank as the greatest mystery on Lake Michigan, largely because the media has nurtured public fascination over more than a century. Taken out of winter lay-up on January 20, 1895, to transport a cargo of flour from Milwaukee back to St. Joseph, the three-year-old steamship had been rigidly constructed for just such hazardous winter duty. Captain Edward C. Stines hurriedly assembled a crew, including his 23-year old son, to replace the ailing second mate, and made it quickly across the lake. The next morning the Chicora steamed out of Milwaukee into the face of what would become, in just a few hours, a raging ice storm.
No bodies ever came ashore, but a bottle with a note signed by First Engineer Joseph McClure was found near Glenn, Michigan, indicating that at 10:15 he "could have seen land if not snowed and blowed." His family confirmed its authenticity.
Thousands of newspaper stories have recounted the disappearance of the stout steamer, theories about what happened, and erroneous accounts of the wreck's discovery. Detroit Tribune: St. Joseph, Michigan, May 29, 1895: At 3:00 this afternoon the Chicora search party, who are working north of here, struck something with the drag, 12 miles north of here, in 58-feet of water which they think is the Chicora. The drag works seven feet off the bottom, so it would have to be a large object before it would catch. There are no known wrecks within 6 miles of there. The searchers were compelled to stop work on account of the sea, but will start it again at 3:00 in the morning. They are positive it is the missing vessel.
The actual discovery of the wreck of the Chicora will one day prove a satisfying closure to this most famous local mystery.
About 20% of Great Lakes shipwrecks occurred due to fire or explosion, including three of the deadliest disasters. Many blazes erupted while the ships were in port, but others took place on open waters where passengers and crew had little chance of survival.
Steaming into the Future ~~
The Badger: The crosslake rail carferry service began in 1892 to avoid railroad congestion at Chicago. That motivation also applied to automobiles when U.S. Highway 10 was completed in 1926, extending from Detroit to Seattle via Lake Michigan. The 60-mile lake crossing on the carferries took only four hours instead of the much longer 410-mile drive from Ludington to Manitowoc through Chicago.
In 2015 the Badger was officially designated as part of U.S. Highway 10, which now runs from Bay City, Michigan to Fargo, North Dakota. The Badger carries the road marker on its seagate and transports a wide variety of interesting vehicles and cargoes. The crosslake service reduces road wear and emissions that would be the consequences of highway travel.
The Badger has transported some very famous people and animals: In July 2014, they transported the Clydesdale Horses from their home at Merrimack, New Hampshire to take part in baseball's All Star game at Minneapolis, MN; August 2016 it took the L.L. Bean Bootmobile from Ludington to Manitowac during one of its tours through the Midwest. Most common among atypical cargoes are over-sized tractor-trailer trucks hauling immense industrial components that would be unwieldly upon the freeways and toll roads around Chicago. In August 2012 Joe's Tractor Group made a trip with their vintage farm tractors across Lake Michigan to the Western Michigan Old Engine Club's annual meeting. In 2013, a group of Harley-Davidson riders took their motorcycles from Ludington to Milwaukee to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the brand in its home town.
Today one can take a trip on the Badger from Ludington to Manitowoc, with your own car or as a cruise from one city to the other.
Jacob Lunde painted the Ottawa, a tribe originally from an area in today's Ontario. Canada. In the late 16th century they were forced by the Algonquins, armed by European settlers, into what is today Wisconsin. After the Algonquin threat diminished, the Ottawa moved to what is now Michigan's lower peninsula, many settling near the Pere Marquette River. There were several Native American villages here before the settlers arrived. In the late 17th century near present-day Custer, the local Ottawas, generally a peaceful tribe, were attached by the Mascoutens (not Pottawatomie as noted on the map). Victims' heads were mounted on sticks along the river resulting in this area being called "Nin de ba ka tuning" (place of skulls). Soon after missionary Father Jacque Marquette died along the lakeshore in 1671, the area was renamed Pere Marquette.
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| Respect for Resources |
As the lumbering era began here in the 1840s, about 400 Ottawa remained. Over time many became Christians and lived in frame houses, and some worked for wages in the fishing, farming, and lumber industries. However, they maintained their traditional practices of hunting, trapping, and farming and adhered to many of the cultural and social practices of their ancestors.
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| Logging Wheel |
A pair of huge wooden wheels on an axle enabled logs to be transported through the rough forest terrain to the riverside when snow was light and sleighs could not be used.
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| Logging Sleighs |
Logging was generally a winter occupation. Loggers felled trees, cut them into logs, and stored them on the banks of the Pere Marquette River to await the spring thaw. Then they would be floated downriver to their sawmill where they would be cut into lumber.
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| Lumber Camp Ladies |
Typical lumber camps consisted of a bunkhouse for several dozen men, a dining room and a kitchen, typically staffed by women. The camps also included stables for horses and oxen, as well as a blacksmith shop. Once the surrounding stand of trees has been cut, the buildings are disassembled and re-erected within another stand of trees.
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| Transporting Logs |
After river ice thawed in the spring, logs that had been stored along the banks during winter logging operations would be floated to the mill at the south end of Pere Marquette Lake.
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| Mason & Oceana Railroad |
In 1887 Butters and Peters built the Mason & Oceana Railroad, a 27-mile narrow gauge rail line that ran through timberlands with no access to the river, to their sawmill on Pere Marquette Lake. A locomotive, similar to the one pictured here, is on display at Historic White Pine Village.
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| Sorting Gap |
Once the logs that had been floated downriver reached Pere Marquette Lake, they were all collected in a sorting area where sorters would separate out the logs based on each lumber company's distinctive mark. Each mill's logs would then be gathered into a huge "boom" and towed by tugboats to the proper mill.
In addition to logging, Ludington also had a growing salt industry. The salt industry started when sawmill owners discovered salt deposits under their properties surrounding Pere Marquette Lake. The Pere Marquette Lumber Company began producing salt in 1886. Water was injected into a well, which created brine, and then pumped up into large pans. Heat generated by burning sawdust and other wood waste material from the mill, evaporated the water, leaving salt. For the next 40 years, sawmill owners, then Anchor and Morton Salt Company, produced table salt. In 1932 Morton consolidated its local plant at Manistee, and salt production ended.
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| Ludington's first salt producer built this salt bin, pictured in 1896, that could hold 20,000 barrels of salt |
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| What does this say? |
After we left the museum, we went to dinner and then headed to the marina to wait for the Badger to come into port. The marina was near a city playground and park that was filled with parents and children enjoying the late afternoon weather. Also around the park were statutes and what they depicted. Here are pictures of those statutes:
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| Put me in Coach |
By Mark Lundeen, Loveland, Colorado. For seven intermittent seasons between 1912 and 1926, the Ludington Mariners played baseball in Culver Park, once located near this site at the southwest corner of Loomis and Lewis Streets. Typical of minor league professional teams of the time, the Mariners were independent and unaffiliated with any major league team. Five Mariners went on to play in the big league.
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| Driving Force |
Created by Employees of the SS Badger. This propeller was damaged in heavy ice during an era when Ludington's car ferries sailed all year. This sculpture honors the thousands of car ferry employees who were the driving force of these great ships weathering the storms of nature and a changing world for more than 100 years. The coal fired, steam powered SS Badger is the last of her kind and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016. She is an engineering marvel and an icon for the community, but her crew has always been her heart and soul.
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| The Abbie, A Great Lakes Schooner |
By Tyson Snow, Ogden, Utah. The Abbie was the last schooner built at the Ludington docks in 1886 for Rasmus Rasmussen. At 88-feet long, 22-feet wide, and with a 6 foot draft, this double-masted, 88-ton schooner was typical of those that sailed the Great Lakes. On most voyages it would transport "tannin bark" to the tanneries in Chicago, returning with items needed by the inhabitants of the Ludington area. The Abbie sailed Lake Michigan until it was lost off Portage Lake Pier on November 8, 1905, when a storm drove it ashore. One of the crew swam to safety and with the swift response of rescuers, the remaining crew members were recovered from the cabin wreckage with no loss of life.
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| Sport Fishing |
By Bryce Petit, Durango, Colorado. In the 1960s, the introduction of Coho and Chinook Salmon into Lake Michigan was the beginning of great expansion of sport fishing. In 1964, over 600,000 Coho smolts were stocked in the Platte River and Bear Creek, both tributaries of Lake Michigan. In 1966, a similar program was implemented with Chinook (King) Salmon. It was not known whether the plant of a non-native species usually considered a salt-water fish, would be successful in the fresh water environment. The fish thrived.
The Chinook program was even more successful than the Coho since the species is larger and matures to the larger size in a shorter time span. In the autumn of 1967, the fishery erupted with large numbers of mature fish being caught. The fishery's success was so great, it attracted national media attention. Tourism boomed. The enormous economic impact on the region has continued for 45 years with the development of new fishing equipment, boats, and technologies as well as with restaurants, lodging facilities, and retailers. This sculpture signifies the significant impact of sport fishing on Lake Michigan.
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| Follow the Leader |
By W. Stanley Proctor, Tallahassee, Florida. In celebration of our children, who are our future.
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| Ludington's Lumbering Era |
By Ron Dewey, Cleveland, Ohio. This sculpture depicts the historic role lumbering played in the development of the city of Ludington.
"The Beginning" ~~ In 1875, two years after the city of Ludington was incorporated, the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad began cross-lake steamer service between Ludington and Sheboygan, Wisconsin to transport goods across Lake Michigan. The first small ships were wooden-hulled and were called "break-bulk" freighters because cargo was unloaded from rail cars by dockworkers onto the ship and then transferred back onto rail cars at the end of the journey. Milwaukee replaced Sheboygan as the primary Wisconsin port in 1876.
"The First Car Ferries" ~~ The first Ludington car ferry, the steel-hulled Pere Marquette, was added to the Flint & Pere Marquette fleet in 1897. Along with limited passenger accommodations, she boasted four sets of railroad tracks on her deck, allowing loaded rail cars to be shipped across the lake. This eliminated laborious hand loading and unloading of the earlier wooden-hulled freighters and helped coin the term "car ferry." In 1900, the F & PM merged with other rail lines to form what would become the Pere Marquette Railway Company. The new company operated cross-lake car ferry routes successfully for the first half of the century which led to the construction of ten new vessels.
"The Golden Era" ~~ In 1947, the giant Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad absorbed the Pere Marquette Railway, and the service continued to expand for several more years. During the height of the car ferry era in the 1950s, seven ships sailed in and out of the Ludington harbor year-round transporting rail freight and passengers across Lake Michigan to the Wisconsin ports of Manitowoc, Milwaukee, and Kewaunee. The sister ships, SS Spartan and SS Badger, launched in 1952 and 1953, were the last- and largest- coal-fired, steam engine car ferries built in the United States.
"The Decline" ~~ As the efficiency of the railroad service around Lake Michigan improved, the C & O found it was no longer profitable to transport rail cars by ship. The company was granted permission by the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon cross-lake routes beginning in 1980. The fleet's three remaining ferries were sold to two Ludington businessmen. Their private venture, the the Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company, continued to focus on rail freight, but the stead decline in business forced the company to cease operations in November 1990. Railroad car ferries were no longer viable, and the three ships seemed destined for the scrap yard.
"A New Beginning" ~~ In 1992, Charles Conrad, a Ludington native and retired entrepreneur, purchased the SS City of Midland 41, SS Spartan and SS Badger and formed Lake Michigan Carferry Service. Conrad knew how important the car ferries were to the local economy, and he wanted to see the sail for another 100 years. He invested his own money to create a new line for the SS Badger, transporting leisure travelers, their vehicles and commercial trucks between Ludington and Manitowoc. Having proven that the Badger could be resurrected with a new mission, Conrad sold the company in 1994 to three businessmen to carry on the tradition of the Car Ferries of Ludington.
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| The Spirit of Ludington |
By Kristen Kokkin. Dedicated to the memory of Charles Conrad, "The Spirit of Ludington" honors all seafarers. These brave men and women pledged their lives to the fine tradition of working on the Great Lakes. Pioneers in their trade, they courageously faced the hardships of living at sea. While performing daily duties, they unknowingly helped to settle and build commerce in the community, as well as extended travel to this region of Michigan.
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