The Sinking of the Pere Marquette Eighteen
Near Ludington, Michigan
The car ferry era gave Ludington its greatest tragedy. In the early hours of the ninth of September, nineteen ten, the steel train ferry Pere Marquette eighteen left this harbor bound for Milwaukee, carrying sixty two people and a deck of railcars loaded with freight and coal. Somewhere out in the open lake, she began taking on massive amounts of water.
The crew worked the pumps and even threw railcars overboard to lighten her, but nothing could stem the flooding. Her fleetmate the Pere Marquette seventeen raced to her side and stood by as the stricken ship settled lower and lower. Then, still miles from land off the Wisconsin shore near Sheboygan, the eighteen went down by the stern.
Twenty seven people aboard her were lost, and the rescuing ship lost two of her own crew in the effort, so that a memorial marker records that at least twenty nine people died. Among the dead was the first wireless radio operator ever to die in active service on the Great Lakes. Because none of the ship's officers survived, no one could ever fully explain why she flooded, and the true cause remains a mystery to this day.
It was the worst disaster ever to strike the Ludington car ferry fleet.
