USS Essex, Last McKay Ship

Below the waters near Duluth's harbor entrance lies the hulk of the USS Essex, built in eighteen seventy-four by Donald McKay, the most celebrated American shipwright of the nineteenth century. It was the last vessel McKay ever designed, and the only surviving example of his craftsmanship anywhere in the world. The Navy commissioned the wooden-hulled steam sloop of war in eighteen seventy-six, and Essex sailed global service routes before ending up on the Great Lakes as a Naval Reserve training ship for the state of Minnesota.

In nineteen thirty-one it was burned to the waterline on a beach outside Duluth harbor, a common disposal method of the era. The remains settled into the lakebed and were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen ninety-four. Maritime Heritage Minnesota monitors the site today, documenting the slow work of time on the last ghost of McKay's genius.