A Wisconsin fisherman in the fog this week discovered the shipwreck of an abandoned tugboat submerged in the waters of Lake Michigan for more than a century, state authorities announced on Friday.
Wisconsin Historical Society Maritime Archaeologist Tamara Thomsen said that society confirmed that Christopher Thuss found the shipwreck of the JC Ames. Thuss was fishing on Lake Michigan in front of the city of Manitowoc in fog conditions on Tuesday when he noticed the remains in nine feet of water with water, he said in a message to Associated Press.
Society said the book “Green Bay Beuth Storses: The Nau Tug Line”, The Rand and Burger Shipbuilding Company in Manitowoc builds the JC Ames in 1881 to help move the wood. The pull was one of the largest and most powerful in the great lakes, with a 670 horsepower engine.
Tamara Thomsen / AP 
The tugboat served multiple purposes beyond moving, including the transport of railway cars. It is possible to fall into poor condition and was sunk in 1923, as was the practice that when the ships survived their usefulness, said Thomsen.
The ship had been buried in the sand at the bottom of the lake for decades before storms this winter apparently revealed it, said Thomsen. The lack of quagga mussels attached to the ship indicates that it was only exposed, he said.
Historians are running To locate shipwrecks and Fallen airplanes In the great lakes before Quagga mussels destroy them. Quagga has become the dominant invasive species In the lower lakes in the last 30 years, joining wooden shipwrecks and planes sunk in layers so thick that anyone crushes the remains.
“This type of discoveries are always very exciting because it allows a piece of lost history to resurface. He sat there for a hundred years and then returned to our radar completely,” Thomsen said in a statement. “We are grateful that Chris Thuss has noticed the accident and reported it so that we can share this story with the Wisconsin communities to which this story belongs.”
In September, maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck announced that they had discovered the Naño del John EvensonA tow tugboat was lost in June 1895 while helping a freighter, since it was the Shurgeon Bay Ship channel in Lake Michigan. The two historians also found the schooner Margaret A. Muir in June 2024.
In March 2024, the wreck of the Milwaukee steamboat, which sank after colliding with another ship in 1886, was Found 360 feet under the surface of the water In Lake Michigan.
That discovery came only a few months after a man and his daughter Found the remains of a ship That sank into Lake Michigan 15 years before Milwaukee, in 1871.
Experts estimate that more than 6,000 ships have fallen in the big lakes since the late 1600.