Searchers find wreck of luxury steamer lost in Lake Michigan more than
150 years ago
[February 16, 2026]
By TODD RICHMOND
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Searchers have discovered the wreck of a luxury
steamer that sank in a Lake Michigan gale in the late 19th century,
completing a quest that began almost 60 years ago.
Shipwreck World, a group that works to locate shipwrecks around the
globe, announced Friday that a team led by Illinois shipwreck hunter
Paul Ehorn found the Lac La Belle about 20 miles (32 kilometers)
offshore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin, in October 2022.
Ehorn told The Associated Press in a phone interview on Sunday that the
announcement was delayed because his team wanted to include a
three-dimensional video model of the ship with it, but poor weather and
other commitments kept his dive team from going back down to the wreck
until last summer.
Ehorn, 80, has been searching for shipwrecks since he was 15 years old.
He said that he's been trying to pinpoint the Lac La Belle's location
since 1965. He used a clue from fellow wreck hunter and author Ross
Richardson in 2022 to narrow down his search grid and found the ship
using side-scan sonar after just two hours on the lake, he said.
“It’s kind of a game, like solve the puzzle. Sometimes you don’t have
many pieces to put the puzzle together but this one worked out and we
found it right away," he said. The finding left him “super elated.”
Ehorn declined to discuss the clue that led to the discovery. Richardson
said in a short telephone interview Sunday that he learned that a
commercial fisherman at a “certain location” had snagged what Richardson
called an item specific to steam ships from the 1800s. He declined to
elaborate further how competitive shipwreck hunting has become and said
the information could alert searchers to another way to conduct
research.
According to an account on Shipwreck World, the Lac La Belle was built
in 1864, in Cleveland, Ohio. The 217-foot (66-meter) steamer ran between
Cleveland and Lake Superior but sank in the St. Clair River in 1866
after a collision. The ship was raised in 1869, and reconditioned.
[to top of second column]
|
This image of an original photo print provided by Brendon Baillod
shows the Lac La Belle docked at Marquette, Mich., in 1866. (Brendon
Baillod via AP)
The ship left Milwaukee for Grand Haven, Michigan, in a gale on the
night of Oct, 13, 1872, with 53 passengers and crew and a cargo of
barley, pork, flour and whiskey. About two hours into the trip, the
ship began to take on water uncontrollably. The captain turned the
Lac La Belle back toward Milwaukee but huge waves came crashing over
her, extinguishing her boilers. The storm drove the ship south.
Around 5 a.m., the captain ordered lifeboats lowered and the ship
went down stern-first.
One of the lifeboats capsized on the way to shore, killing eight
people. The other lifeboats made landfall along the Wisconsin coast
between Racine and Kenosha.
The wreck's exterior is covered with quagga mussels and the upper
cabins are gone, Ehorn said, but the hull looks intact and the oak
interiors are still in good shape.
The Great Lakes are home to anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000
shipwrecks, most of which remain undiscovered, according to the
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Water Library. Shipwreck
hunters have been searching the lakes with more urgency in recent
years out of concerns that invasive quagga mussels are slowly
destroying wrecks.
The Lac La Belle is the 15th shipwreck Ehorn has located. “It was
one more to put a check mark by," he said. "Now it’s on to the next
one. It’s getting harder and harder. The easier ones have been
found.”
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
