The Great Lakes region will forever serve as a final resting place for the countless crew members and passengers who lost their lives in the estimated 6,000+ wrecks that were swept away by Mother Nature. Perhaps one of the most famous of these shipwrecks is the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which was named after the recently appointed president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Sir Edmund Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, little known is about the life of Mr. Edmund Fitzgerald himself – as he would be curious to know if the ship and the man suffered “similar “fate
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was first commissioned on February 1, 1957 and was to be one of the largest ships ever built in the Great Lakes region. It took some time for the ship to complete the year; and was baptized on June 8, 1958 by Mrs. Edmund Fitzgerald with a bottle of champagne. The ship measured in at 729 long feet and weighed 13,632 tons empty.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald would sail on its maiden voyage on September 24 of the same year, under the command of Lamberto Berta. This also set the record for the largest cargo ship ever to use the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie.
Over the course of the next several years Fitzgerald would go through multiple changes of office. They also collided with the walls of the Soo Locks several times, and also collided with another ship – the SS Hochelaga on April 30, 1970.
In 1971 and 1972, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald ran on oil instead of coal. It would take the US 72,000 to run a shipwreck. That same year, 1972 – Ernest M. McSorely would see the last Captain Fitzgerald.
It is estimated that the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank at approximately 7:30 p.m. on November 10, 1975. The wreck was located 530 feet below the surface of Lake Superior, just 17 miles away. the beach
on July 4th, 1995 – the 200 pound bell by Fitzgerald was brought to the surface and returned to Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. There is a permanent exhibit at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan – and it is run every year in honor of those who lost their lives on the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and those who have lost their lives in the past raging, flooding the waters of the Great Lakes.
There will be no law aboard the SS Edmund Fitzgerald – so that the ship and crew may rest forever in their watery grave in Lake Superior.
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– The Great Lakes, Shipwreck Museum;
– Wikipedia; “Ss Edmund Fitzgerald;”
– http://www.corfid.com/gl/wreck.htm
– http://www.ssefo.com
