Searchers discover 'ghost ship' that sank in Lake Michigan almost 140 years ago

[turbinetree]

By TODD RICHMOND
Updated 5:46 PM EDT, September 15, 2025

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — After decades of scouring the bottom of Lake Michigan, searchers have finally found the wreckage of a “ghost ship” that sank during a ferocious storm almost 140 years ago off the Wisconsin coastline.

The Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association announced Monday that a team led by researcher Brendon Baillod found the wreck of the F.J. King. Baillod said in an email to The Associated Press that the wreckage was discovered on June 28.

According to the announcement, Baillod’s team found the ship off Bailey’s Harbor, a town of about 280 people on Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, an outcropping of land jutting into Lake Michigan that gives the state its distinctive mitten-thumb shape.

https://apnews.com/article/lake-michigan-schooner-shipwreck-door-county-ccff930d8cd87f3597483938f8fb4fd6

[TheProle]

1. The depths of the Great Lakes likely hold many many secrets

Thanks for posting. Very cool. K&R.

[hlthe2b]

2. Interesting... I'm immediately reminded (of course) of "Superior never giving up her dead..."

the famous saga from Gordon Lightfoot of the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

These land-bound Great Lakes are hard for many to fathom, but they are essentially the near-oceans of our interior.

[turbinetree]

3. Yes they are and I was living in region when it sank...........it can just get plain miserable sometimes

[unweird]

4. WTF?

Bailey’s Harbor, a town of about 280 people on Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, an outcropping of land jutting into Lake Michigan that gives the state its distinctive mitten-thumb shape.

I never thought of Wisconsin as having a “mitten-thumb” shape. Though I did about Michigan.