“Rediscovered After Over a Century: The SS Western Reserve Hides Secrets at the Bottom of Lake Superior!”
Indeed, it was a violent squall that doomed the Western Reserve in 1892, when a summer pleasure cruise turned into a perilous, and ultimately doomed, fight for survival.
The Dramatic Final Hours Of The SS Western Reserve Just Before It Sank
Great Lakes Shipwreck MuseumThe Western Reserve was considered one of the safest — and fastest — ships of its day.
No one expected that the Western Reserve would go down. One of the first all-steel vessels to sail on the Great Lakes, the ship was thoght to be among the safest ships of its day. Not only that, it was exceedingly fast, leading one newspaper to describe it as “the inland greyhound.”
There were no signs of danger when it embarked upon what would prove to be its final voyage, en route to Two Harbors, Minnesota, on August 30, 1892. The ship’s owner, Peter G. Minch, surely thought it would be a simple cruise when he set out with five family members and 22 crewmen.
But after the ship left Whitefish Bay, the water became so rough that the crew was forced to briefly drop anchor. Then, shortly after the Western Reserve made its way into Lake Superior around 9 p.m. that night, the summer squall increased in intensity, battering the ship with gale-force winds and waves.
To the horror of the 28 people on board, the Western Reserve started to break in two.
Great Lakes Shipwreck MuseumA depiction of the ship breaking apart, and of its only survivor, wheelsman Harry W. Stewart.
Within 10 minutes, the ship sank. Though those aboard had managed to escape onto two lifeboats — the Minch family in one and the crew in the other — the waters were so rough that the crew’s lifeboat sank almost immediately, with only some able to make it into the surviving lifeboat. By 7:30 a.m., the second lifeboat managed to make it within one mile of the shoreline near Deer Park Michigan, before it too overturned.
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