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 November 10, 1975.

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 SS Valley Camp was a lake freighter now turned into a museum, the Museum Ship Valley Camp in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Among their exhibits is an Edmund Fitzgerald lifeboat.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan, 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 💗

Langley Covered Bridge, 21959 Schweitzer Road, Three Rivers MI

This is Michigan's longest wooden covered bridge still in existence. It was built from white pine in 1887 using Howe-truss construction. When the Sturgis Dam was built in 1910, the bridge had to be raised eight feet.

The bridge and the causeway cross the St. Joseph River. In 1950-51, a new under structure was installed and in 2008-09, the roof was replaced; asphalt was removed and returned to wood planking. Steel underpinnings were replaced in 2023.

The bridge is 282 feet across and consists of three 94 foot spans. There are height (7 feet), weight (3 tons), and width restrictions (one lane). And no trucks are allowed as per the signage ("Your GPS Is Wrong").

Traffic was fairly constant so we didn't have much time to walk onto the bridge. Being a one lane bridge, cars have to take turns crossing and we finally did the same. Langley Bridge doesn't have the charm of say Fallasburg Bridge but it is certainly historic and in a pretty setting.

 

The Builders, 20745 M-60 East, Cassopolis MI

This eye-catching sculpture complex sits right on M-60 and we did a quick turn around in the car to see what it was. It stands next to K & M Machine Fabricating, whose employees did all the fabricating of this work designed by Kirk Newman.

The tallest steel pieces stand 50 feet high and the bronze figures are life-sized and represent a welder, a machinist, a foreman, and a manager.

The plaque is hard to read but it states that "The Builders" is dedicated to the people of the metal working industry. (The name Earl G. Marhanka is beneath the inscription; Marhanka was the founder of K & M Machine Fabricating, Inc.)

It's a striking and impressive work of art, and very accessible so don't pass it by.