Lost to Time: Wisconsin Archaeologists Unearth a Mysterious Shipwreck They Weren’t Even Searching For
Researchers with the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association made the discovery while surveying the river to look for a different shipwreck, which still has not been found.
The Unexpected Shipwreck Discovery At The Bottom Of Wisconsin’s Fox River
Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology AssociationSonar image of the presumed L.W. Crane wreck at the bottom of the Fox River in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
In April 2025, researchers set out to find the shipwreck of the Berlin City, a wooden steamer that sank in the Fox River near Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1870. They were also hoping to find the wreckage of a second ship that had first been identified in 2016.
The researchers eventually did find an historic shipwreck, though not the one they’d expected.
Using high-resolution side-scan sonar, the team was surveying a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of the river when they stumbled upon a sunken vessel, according to a statement from the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association.
The boat was 23 feet wide and 90 feet long, dimensions that didn’t match those of the Berlin City, but did line up with the size of a different steamship, the L.W. Crane. The ship had a boxy shape and a flat bottom, allowing it to dock in shallow harbors.
Wisconsin Historical SocietyThe Berlin City, which sank in 1870.
“Sometimes you find the shipwreck you weren’t looking for,” said Jordan Ciesielczyk, a maritime archaeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society. “(These are) the kind of discoveries that we live for.”
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