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Stories in the Wreckage The cold, mercurial waters surrounding the Door Peninsula are literally legendary. Because they began vanquishing ships long before there were local newspapers to report losses or technology with which to plot locations, much of the havoc they’ve wreaked on maritime travel remains the subject of speculation and fable. Door County’s very name derives from an untraceable story of American Indian canoes being overturned in the perilous passage now known as “Death’s Door,” and the first known Euro-American shipwreck in the area, a vessel called the Griffin, left Washington Island in 1679 and vanished without a trace. A rich and storied culture has sprung up around these tragedies and mysterious disappearances. As remarkable as this wealth of stories are the shipwrecks themselves, which offer a fascinating look into the history of Door County and its people. Experts estimate that the remains of over 200 ships inhabit the waters around Door County. Though all the Great Lakes are known for their dangerous potential, the uneven topography of Door County’s lake floor figures prominently in the unusually high frequency of shipwrecks here. “The waters of Green Bay are just loaded with shoals and reefs,” notes Jim Baye, Great Lakes maritime historian and diver. “Imagine cruising along Lake Michigan, waters 100-plus feet deep, and suddenly realizing you’re on a spot called ‘Four-Foot Shoal.’ That’s scary in calm waters. You add in some wind and waves and the equation is just bad chemistry.” In addition to the area’s topographical dangers, fire, poor craft construction, storms, and collisions with debris or other ships have all contributed to the variety of shipwrecks in the area. Ships heading due north from Chicago have even been known to run straight into the east-jutting peninsula – a fact that partially explains why the Door Peninsula boasts so many lighthouses. And in Death’s Door (the infamous strait between the tip of the peninsula and Washington Island), the currents and winds of two volatile bodies of water collide, creating what Baye calls a perfect “crossfire” of dangerous maritime conditions. In fact, according to historian and diver Jon Paul Van Harpen, it was the dangers of Death’s Door that eventually triggered the 1880 construction of a canal between Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan, increasing the efficiency as well as the safety of voyages between Chicago and Green Bay. Even after the canal was cut, however, maritime travel around the peninsula remained treacherous, and the area’s tumultuous waters claimed many lives. Eleven people died, for example, when the Erie L. Hackley sank in 1903. Caught in a storm that some have described as a tornado over water, the ship overturned in Green Bay. Though eight people were rescued after clinging to the ship’s wreckage overnight, the human losses from the Hackley weighed heavily on Door County, as most of those who perished were residents of Fish Creek and Egg Harbor. June Larson of the Door County Maritime Museum calls the sinking of the Hackley “the worst maritime disaster in Northeastern Wisconsin history.” Though unusual in degree, the Hackley’s heartbreaking demise was not unique in kind; Jim Baye calls the county’s waters “a place of ongoing tragedy.” Ironically, the very waters that destroyed Door County vessels in the short-term actually preserved them as the centuries have progressed, the cold temperatures and freshwater composition shielding the ships from decay. According to Baye, the dark, cold water works “almost like a deep freeze,” dramatically slowing the growth of potentially damaging micro-organisms. Because these shipwrecks are so well-preserved, and because so many of the ships on the floor of Lake Michigan served as commercial vessels rather than exploratory or recreational boats, Door County’s shipwrecks illuminate the everyday life of bygone eras. Unlike wrecks in other parts of the world that are famous for their treasure or their notoriety, these sites are renowned for the value of their historic catalog. Van Harpen explains, “I’m not really a romanticist about shipwrecks. I see every site as a particular part of the evolution of the Great Lakes…I see a wreck as part of the progression [of maritime travel and commerce], and to me, that’s where the story is.” Kathy Engebose, who runs Dive Diva Charters, based in Gills Rock, believes that a strong sense of that progression is necessary for a true understanding of Door County’s maritime-based history. “These boats are what built this area,” she points out. “All the people that came into the area in the 1850s, all the supplies – they came on the lakes. And our whole economy – all the quarrying, all the lumbering, all that – went out on the lakes.” Jim Baye agrees: “We’re pretty much blue-collar people, and these are working ships, carrying lumber, wheat, iron ore. Still, the history’s pretty cool.” Indeed, the history preserved within Door County’s shipwrecks is stunning in both its breadth and its timelessness, offering incomparably vibrant snapshots of Great Lakes life to economists, anthropologists, and maritime historians. As Van Harpen puts it, “Time stopped when these ships sank.” As a result, says Baye, “We can learn a lot about how they lived. We find their clothing, their tools, their lanterns.” One schooner called the Rouse Simmons is so well-preserved that there are still needles on the Christmas trees it was carrying when it sank in Lake Michigan in 1912. Historians are not the only ones to have the privilege of experiencing this underwater history firsthand. Hundreds of divers travel each year to the depths of Green Bay and Lake Michigan to see the history encapsulated in these shipwrecks. Among the most popular dive sites in the county is the wreck of the Frank O’Connor, which lies about two miles northeast of the Cana Island lighthouse and features an intact triple expansion steam engine. Described by Jim Baye as “just a beautiful wreck,” the O’Connor provides one example of history that would have been lost without a shipwreck to preserve it: all other steam engines of its kind have been dismantled. While the lake does its best to preserve the ships it has conquered, only recently have the federal and state government taken the steps necessary to aid the water in its preservative efforts. In 1969, just as interest in shipwreck diving and hunting was spiking across the country, shipwrecks leapt to the center of Door County’s public consciousness as well with the raising of the Alvin Clark. The topsail schooner sank off Chambers Island in 1864 and was raised to the surface in 1969 in order to be refurbished and converted into a floating museum. Initially, the ship’s future looked promising, but after a century of protection under the cold, dark water, the ship could not tolerate the open air, and it met an unceremonious end in a landfill in 1994. Underwater enthusiasts point to the Alvin Clark as a stern lesson of the dangers of improper treatment of shipwreck sites and their contents. “Even the artifacts they brought up just powdered away,” says Baye. Aside from the historical insights yielded by the Alvin Clark before its untimely demise, he continues, “the number-one lesson we may have learned was to leave [shipwrecks] underwater.” Before the lessons of the Alvin Clark had become clear, shipwrecks were regularly plundered by divers in search of underwater souvenirs. In addition to those who took traditional shipwreck fare like anchors (some of which still decorate Door County lawns), a few people got rich making furniture or novelty items out of wood salvaged from shipwrecks. Few, if any, laws protected shipwreck sites from looting before the 1980s, and according to Van Harpen, “people used to just strip them.” Now, shipwrecks are protected by a variety of laws. If anyone died when the ship sank, the wreck is protected as a gravesite. Even wrecks in which no one perished are protected by the Abandoned Shipwrecks Protection Act of 1987, which handed over control of wreck sites to the states in which they lie. In Wisconsin, the Maritime Trails program protects ships in various ways, including placing buoys at wreck sites, which both protects shipwrecks from being damaged by other ships’ anchors and makes shipwreck exploration easier and safer for divers. Almost as popular as sightseeing dives to major wreck attractions around the county is an ongoing, collective quest to locate new wrecks. The aforementioned Griffin, lost after leaving Washington Island over three centuries ago, is a particularly popular search object – Engebose calls it "the holy grail of shipwrecks." Also sought after is the “Poverty Island Treasure,” a stash of gold that was reportedly being smuggled through the Great Lakes from Canada to assist the Confederate States during the Civil War. Though the ship was overtaken by Union officials, sailors allegedly dropped the gold overboard somewhere north of Rock Island rather than letting it fall into Union hands, and it hasn’t been seen since. In fact, experts estimate that fewer than half of the wrecks off of Door County have been found, and divers eager for adventure, acclaim, and treasure still search for them. A recent, dramatic drop in the expense of side scan sonar technology has made shipwreck hunting a more popular and accessible pastime than it used to be. Diving groups like Green Bay’s “Neptune’s Nimrods” (of which Jim Baye is a member) hope to encourage even more people to join the hunt and are offering cash rewards for the discovery of two sunken ships: the John Evenson and the F.J. King. “We want to know where they are,” Baye explains, “and to get people searching for new wrecks instead of just looking at the same ones.” There’s a lot of water to search, of course, and Engebose calls most shipwreck hunting “looking for needles” in a very large (not to mention wet) haystack. In recent years, most wreck discoveries in Door County have been made accidentally by commercial fishermen. A scow schooner called the Ocean Wave was discovered in 2003 when, as Van Harpen describes it, “one of the Weborgs pulled their nets up and pulled one of the masts around with it.” Another recent discovery, the Australasia, was made by two jet skiers cruising off Cave Point. Whether boats are seeking wrecks, fish, or pleasure, maritime travel around Door County is not as dangerous as it once was. Though Van Harpen notes that “an aging Great Lakes fleet is a problem” and cautions that “too much complacency and reliance on technology is always a risk,” he acknowledges that recent technological advances have seriously reduced the risk of shipwrecks around the county. Still, Van Harpen reminds us, “We will never be able to control Mother Nature.” For better or worse, he is right: the same waters that have capriciously claimed so many vessels over the years have been unfailingly loyal to the ships they defeated, offering them sanctuary in a way that humans cannot. If treated respectfully, these wrecks can illuminate our understanding of life both above and below the water level. As Jim Baye points out, shipwrecks can do wonders to “really open some minds. It’s like, hey – look what’s on the bottom of our waters!”
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