BAILEYS HARBOR, WISCONSIN—For decades, shipwreck searchers scoured the depths of Lake Michigan off Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula for the famous wreck of the F.J. King, which sank in a storm in 1886. Its remnants had proved so elusive that it began to be referred to as a “ghost ship.” The Associated Press reports, however, that a team from the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association recently located the wreck site near the small town of Baileys Harbor. On September 15, 1886, the three-masted cargo schooner was transporting a shipment of iron ore from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago when it sailed into a ferocious gale. The ship’s captain, William Griffin, wrote that his vessel sank five miles from shore, although a local lighthouse keeper reported seeing a schooner’s masts much closer to land. This discrepancy helped thwart previous attempts seeking to identify the wreck site. Ultimately, the lighthouse keeper was correct, since side-scan radar detected the F.J. King less than half a mile from his recorded location. According to lead researcher Brendon Baillod, the ship’s hull appeared to be pretty well intact after 139 years, surprising investigators who expected to find it in pieces due to the weight of the iron ore cargo. “A few of us had to pinch each other,” Baillod said. “After all the previous searches, we couldn’t believe we had actually found it.” For more on wrecks foud in the Great Lakes, go to "Shipwreck Alley."
