The Edmund Fitzgerald, November 10, 1975

(1975 Photo by Bob Campbell, Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum)

We all know the story, and the song, and it's still an incredibly sad event that happened 49 years ago.

The year before, in 1974, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was anchored in the Detroit River just east of the Renaissance Center. When the crew went to lift the anchor, the chain broke leaving the anchor at the  bottom of the river. In 1992, divers retrieved the anchor and it can now be found at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle in Detroit.

The next year the ship and crew went down in Lake Superior.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point has the ship's bell on display. It was brought up from the depths in 1995.

Besides the museum, the oldest lighthouse on Lake Superior is here. The Light Station was established in 1849 and the current light tower was built in 1861.

It's estimated that there are at least 550 shipwrecks in Lake Superior, many undiscovered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed

In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

For all the ships at sea 💗