{"id":14760,"date":"2025-11-12T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=14760"},"modified":"2025-11-13T05:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T05:31:08","slug":"smithinian-magazine-50th-anniversary-of-the-wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=14760","title":{"rendered":"Smithsonian Magazine: 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

And who doesn’t know the mournful song by Gordon Lightfoot? This is quite a fascinating article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fifty years after the freighter disappeared into the depths of Lake Superior, the mystery of its demise\u2014and the mournful ballad it inspired\u2014still haunt the popular imagination.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the day he died, Ernest McSorley<\/a> had built a reputation as the captain who could weather any storm. He was one of the best sailors on the Great Lakes, where he had been assigned to pilot the Edmund Fitzgerald<\/em><\/a>, the flagship of Oglebay Norton<\/a>\u2019s Columbia Transportation Division. At 729 feet long, the American freighter<\/a> was among the largest ships in the region. McSorley prided himself on his efficiency, and he always delivered his cargo on time, navigating skillfully through dangerous waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite his decades of experience, McSorley reported over the radio that he was witnessing \u201cone of the worst seas I\u2019ve ever been in.\u201d Just after 7 p.m., the Anderson <\/em>checked in again and asked how the Fitzgerald <\/em>was faring. \u201cWe are holding our own,\u201d the captain said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that final transmission, the Fitzgerald<\/em> stopped answering calls from the Anderson<\/em> and disappeared from the radar. Without ever sending out a distress signal, the ship went down about 17 miles (15 nautical miles) from safety, taking all 29 crew members<\/a> with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years after the Fitzgerald<\/em> slipped beneath the surface of Lake Superior, the tragedy has become deeply embedded in the popular imagination. While its death toll is eclipsed by those of calamities like the Titanic<\/em><\/a>and the Lusitania<\/em><\/a>, and its journey lacks the grand adventure arc associated with expeditions like John Franklin\u2019s failed quest<\/a> to discover the Northwest Passage, the doomed freighter easily ranks among history\u2019s most famous shipwrecks<\/a>. Known as the \u201cTitanic<\/em><\/a><\/a>of the Great Lakes<\/a>,\u201d the vessel is a reminder of maritime disasters\u2019 enduring power to captivate, regardless of their scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nobody knows exactly how many shipwrecks lie beneath the lakes\u2019 waters. Bacon estimates that between 1875 and 1975, a total of 6,000 commercial wrecks killed roughly 30,000 mariners\u2014which amounts to about one death per day for 100 years. Of those 6,000 shipwrecks, the Fitzgerald <\/em>is the most notorious. It\u2019s also the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1975, there haven\u2019t been any<\/em> major industrial wrecks on the Great Lakes. What changed? Advances in weather forecasting and communication technologies have certainly done their part to keep ships afloat. But so have evolving norms in commercial shipping. The Fitzgerald<\/em>\u2019s downfall sent \u201cshock waves through the whole industry,\u201d says Bacon. \u201cIt was so cataclysmic that they finally woke up.\u201d Bacon was at Lake Superior last November, and when the weather turned angry, \u201cevery single ship was anchored in Whitefish Bay,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd 50 years ago, trust me, none of them would\u2019ve been.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And who doesn’t know the mournful song by Gordon Lightfoot? This is quite a fascinating article. Fifty years after the freighter disappeared into the depths of Lake Superior, the mystery of its demise\u2014and the mournful ballad it inspired\u2014still haunt the popular imagination. By the day he died, Ernest McSorley had built a reputation as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remembreance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14760"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14770,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14760\/revisions\/14770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}