The Edmund Fitzgerald

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The Edmund Fitzgerald

Since commercial shipping began on the five Great Lakes, there have Been six thousand shipwrecks. Half have never been found. There are three storms
The sailors still talk about: The great storm of 1913 claimed 250 lives and 12 ships. The storm of 1940 claimed 100 lives and two ships. The storm of 1975 claimed only one ship and 29 lives.

The wreck of 1975 remains the most mysterious and controversial of all shipwreck tales heard around the Great Lakes. The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald is surpassed in books, and film and media only by that of the Titanic. Its mystery even led Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot to write a ballad about the vessel, “the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which in turn inspired popular interest in the story and the ship.

Here I think would be a good place to look at some background regarding the ship. The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was conceived as a business enterprise of the Northern Mutual Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Northern Mutual contracted with Great Lakes Engineering Works of Ecorse, Michigan to construct a “maximum sized” Great Lakes bulk carrier. The keel was laid on August 7, 1957 as hull no. 301.

The ship was named after the President and Chairman of the board of Northern Mutual, and the Fitzgerald was launched June 8, 1958 at River Rouge, Michigan. Northern Mutual placed the ship under permanent charter to the Columbia Transportation Division of Oglebay Norton Company, Cleveland, Ohio. At 729 feet long, 75 feet wide and 13,632 gross tons, the ship was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, for thirteen years, until 1971.

The Fitzgerald's normal coarse during its productive life took it between Silver Bay, Minnesota, where she loaded taconite, to steel mills on the lower lakes in the Detroit And Toledo area. It was usually empty on its return trip to Silver Bay.
(Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum—www.shipwreckmuseum.com/about.html)

On November 9, 1975 Fitzgerald was to transport a load of taconite from Superior, Wisconsin, to Zug Island, Detroit, Michigan. Not Cleveland, as referenced to in the song by Gordon Lightfoot. The final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald began at the Burlington Northern Railroad Dock No. 1, Superior, Wisconsin. Captain Ernest M McSorly had loaded it with 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, made of processed iron ore, heated and rolled into marble-size balls.

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