It was the greatest technological advancement of its time to sail on the Great Lakes, and just like the Titanic, a ship whose owners made similar claims, was also lost to Mother Nature.
But more than 130 years after its sinking, the Western Reserve all-steel cargo ship has been found under the surface of Lake Superior.
The ship, all 300 feet built to break speed records, was called “the inland greyhound” and was considered one of the safest ships on the water, NBC News reported.
At the time, ships were still made of wood.
But when it entered Whitefish Bay carrying no cargo on Aug. 30, 1892, a gale came up, cracking the vessel in half.
On board was the ship’s owner Peter Minch, his wife, children and the ship’s crew. In all 27 people were on the ship when it went down, The Washington Post reported.
Nineteen survivors were able to get on the last wooden lifeboat, but that filled with water over the 10 hours after the sinking. It too sank just after sunrise and within view of the rescue station.
All but one person, the ship’s wheelsman Harry Stewart survived. His lifeboat capsized and he swam a mile to shore. It was a swim that took him two hours.
Stewart told the Watertown Republican newspaper about that night, with the newspaper writing, “The cries of the children, screams of the women and moaning of the men were terrible for a few moments. Then all became silent," the Post reported.
But nearly 132 years after the sinking of the Western Reserve, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society found what was left, announcing the discovery on Saturday during Manitowoc, Wisconsin’s Ghost Ships Festival.
It took more than two years for Darryl Ertel and his brother Dan to find the ship. But thanks to ship traffic, they were able to find it when they had to adjust the course and search grid to an area adjacent to where they planned to search.
The Ertels, using sonar devices on the back and sides of their ship, noticed a shadow and after a few tweaks to the system, they saw a ship in two pieces with the bow, or the front of a ship, resting on the stern, or the back of a ship.
It confirmed what Stewart said happened. That the ship broke in two.
More than a week later, and with the use of a submersible drone, they confirmed they found the Western Reserve thanks to a match to a running light that came ashore after the wreck.
Finding the ship where they did gave Darryl Ertel pause.
“Knowing how the 300-foot Western Reserve was caught in a storm this far from shore made a uneasy feeling in the back of my neck,” he said. “A squall can come up unexpectedly…anywhere, and anytime.”
The ship was broken but preserved thanks to the cold fresh water.
So what caused the Western Reserve to meet its fate in what the National Weather Service called a “relatively minor gale?”
Just like the Titanic, the steel may have played a part.
The steel for both ships was made by the Bessemer process, the Post and, in the case of the Titanic, the U.S. Department of Commerce, said.
Steel can become brittle in cold temperatures. Water in Lake Superior in August is about 60 degrees. But the hull could have been weak since it was the start of using steel bodies for ships, and the twisting from the storm may have been too much.
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