In the wake of the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking, it may surprise readers to know that centuries-old Great Lakes ships are still being uncovered on a regular basis and in increasing frequency. Since Jun. 2025 and as recently as October, five major shipwreck discoveries have been made public since sinking over a century ago: the J.C. Ames, the F.J. King, the L.W. Crane, the SS James Carruthers, and the Frank D. Barker.
The F.J. King, a 144-foot-long wooden schooner hauling 600 tons of iron ore from Escanaba, MI to Chicago, sank in 1886 during a September storm near Cana Island, WI. Its wreckage was discovered by the State of Wisconsin in Jun. 2025 as part of its Lakebed 2030 initiative, an effort to create high-resolution maps of Lake Michigan’s lakebed using modern sonar scanning techniques. The discovery was made public in September of this year.
Tamara Thomsen, a maritime archaeologist for Wisconsin’s maritime preservation and archaeology program, says that the rate of finding new shipwrecks has been “accelerating.” In an interview with NPR, Thomsen said, “We have a lot more shipwrecks that are being discovered every single year.” She compared the beginning of her career in 2004 to today: “We would have one or two, maybe three on a good year that was reported. But in our recent years, we’ve had 17, 18, 25 shipwrecks reported, and it’s a struggle to keep up.”
Thomsen cites “accessibility to technology” as an important factor for the recently increased frequency of shipwreck discoveries. She mentions that the evolution of fish finders has placed sophisticated sonar-scanning technology in the hands of the consumer. Side-scanning fish finders have “the ability to recognize submerged structures on the bottom of the lake. So we’re getting a lot of reports of these shipwrecks from fishermen as well.”
The National Park Service estimates that “between 1878 and 1898, 6,000 vessels wrecked in the Great Lakes.” Because recordkeeping in the late 19th century was limited and often inconsistent, the precise locations of many of these ships were never documented. As a result, many remain undiscovered, waiting to be located by today’s divers, researchers, and curious lakegoers
