MILWAUKEE — One of the most popular and luxurious passenger steamers of its day has been found in Lake Michigan's deep waters, searchers announced last week, more than 150 years after it sank stern-first about 20 miles off Racine, Wisconsin.
Lac La Belle, originally registered in Cleveland but later moved to Milwaukee for its home port, carried 53 passengers and crew when it encountered a fierce storm in mid-October 1872. Eight people died.
The ship was discovered by Paul Ehorn, an Elgin, Illinois, shipwreck hunter who has found several wrecks, most notably the SS Senator, which he located in 2005. The steel-hulled freighter sank off Port Washington, taking nine lives and 268 Nash automobiles on Halloween 1929.
The discovery was announced in a release by Brendon Baillod, president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archeological Association, on ShipwreckWorld.com.
Ehorn said Lac La Belle captured his interest because of his love of old wooden steamers. He and his partner, maritime historian and shipwreck hunter Bruce Bittner, were able to narrow down the location and then use sonar to find the ship. The two then recruited two divers to go down and film it.
"When you search, you go down into like a neighborhood," Ehorn told the Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network. "You go down one street, then you go down the next street. If I would've started over in one lane, I would've found it in 30 seconds."
Perhaps most surprising, considering Lac La Belle's violent demise, the hull remains intact and the ship upright. Ehorn, 80, doesn't dive anymore but said he's "envious" of the divers who went to see Lac La Belle.
"It's in great condition," Ehorn said.
Gale force winds, extinguished boilers sealed doom
Built in 1864 in Cleveland, Lac La Belle was powered by a twin-cylinder high-pressure condensing steam engine. It was one of the first propeller ships on the Great Lakes to have twin stacks.
Built as a passenger steamer, Lac La Belle originally ran from Cleveland to Lake Superior. But it sank in an accident in 1866, and needed to be raised and refurbished, converted to a bulk freighter before resuming service.
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On Oct. 13, 1872, Lac La Belle left Milwaukee at 9 p.m. local time, carrying 19,000bushelsof barley, 1,200 barrels of flour, 50 barrels of pork, 25 barrels of whiskey, 20 tons ofanimal feed, and sundries en route to Grand Haven, Michigan. About two hours into the trip, the ship began leaking badly from an unknown source, and it turned back to Milwaukee.
But the storm worsened with gale-force winds from the north, and eventually, water coming in extinguished the ship's boilers, leaving it at the mercy of the wind and the waves. Lifeboats were lowered, and the captain ordered the ship abandoned.
The captain ordered lifeboats lowered, and passengers and crew abandoned ship. All but one lifeboat returned to shore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin. One capsized.
More wrecks are being discovered. This was especially coveted.
The shipwreck-hunting community had long coveted Lac La Belle. But it was never clear exactly where it went down. Ehorn said he and Bittner were "up for joy" when they realized they found it.
"I anticipated searching for a few weeks," Ehorn said. "I got lucky and had a lot of research."
Ehorn will be presenting the discovery in person at the2026 Ghost Ships Festivalin Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on March 7. He will show an underwater video of the site and tell the story of the discovery.
Beyond that, Ehorn's plans include creating a 3D photogrammetry model that will record the condition and layout of the wreck in detail before he releases the precise location.
In recent years, more shipwrecks have been discovered in the Great Lakes than ever before. Shifting water levels uncovering well-preserved sites, combined with better technology and increased public reporting, have all contributed to the boom.
"It's like an Easter egg hunt, and you found the egg," Ehorn said. "The picking gets slimmer as the years go by."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:Searchers find missing luxury ship in Lake Michigan 153 years later
