NEWS

Manitowoc County shipwreck nets honor

HTR Media

The Wisconsin Historical Society has announced the listing of the Pathfinder shipwreck in the Two Creeks vicinity in Manitowoc County in the National Register of Historic Places.

National Register designation provides access to certain benefits, including qualification for grants and for rehabilitation income tax credits, while it does not restrict private property owners in the use of their property.

Located 2.6 miles north of the Rawley Point Lighthouse in Lake Michigan, the wreck lies in 12 to 15 feet of water. Launched in 1869 and lost in 1886, the Pathfinder, measuring nearly 200 feet in length, is a very early example of wooden schooner construction of this size.

The Pathfinder, typical of this vessel type and length, carried three masts. Sites such as that of the Pathfinder present an opportunity to study and learn about historic wooden vessel construction and how the ships were used in the grain and iron-ore trades.

Schooners are a vessel type common in Lake Michigan, and the Pathfinder carried various bulk cargoes on the upper Great Lakes for the duration of her career. In November 1886, the Pathfinder became stranded in a bed of quicksand, and after a brief salvage that same year, was covered by sand and forgotten until being rediscovered in spring 2014.

The register is the official national list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.

State and federal laws protect the shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this shipwreck site. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime.

More about Wisconsin’s historic shipwrecks may be found at www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org.