The Loss of the S.S. Milwaukee Car Ferry
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- čas přidán 6. 05. 2022
- On October 22, 1929, the S.S. Milwaukee car ferry departed from its namesake city into a fierce Lake Michigan gale. It was supposed to deliver 25 railroad cars cross lake at Grand Haven, MI, but never reached its destination. The ship sank nearly 5 hours after its departure and none of the 47 crew members onboard survived.
Thanks to Brian Bosveld for providing the underwater footage of Milwaukee's wreck: / @brianbosveld1087
And to Kalju Kotkas who made the 3D model and animation of Milwaukee: / caljucotcas
Sources used in this video:
Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University - www.bgsu.edu/library/cac/coll...
Great Lakes Maritime Collection, Alpena County Library - greatlakeships.org/search
Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society and Milwaukee Public Library - wmhs.org/
Library of Congress - www.loc.gov/pictures/collecti...
History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff - lflbhistory.org/
Support Railroad Street on Patreon:
/ railroadstreet
#SSMilwaukee #MilwaukeeCarFerry
*Small correction, I misspoke saying the Manistique, Marquette and Northern R.R. "underestimated" their rail traffic. It should be overestimated. So sorry.
Hey everyone, my apology for how long this video took to research and produce. I also want to make an announcement and give a shout out to two people who made this video possible.
First goes to Brian Bosveld who generously provided the underwater video footage from Milwaukee's wreck. Go check out his channel for more underwater videos of Great Lakes Shipwrecks: czcams.com/channels/RPs4b29AMfZL-uYiZ--r9w.html
The second goes to Kalju Kotkas (CaljuCotcas) who made the 3D model and animation of Milwaukee featured in this video. He's made several other models and animations of ships, so go check out his channel too: czcams.com/users/caljucotcas
Some subscribers have asked me recently how they can support the channel beyond just watching my videos, leaving comments, and likes. I have set up a Patreon page for the channel at this link: www.patreon.com/railroadstreet
Or if you prefer an easy one-time donation, here's a tip jar: ko-fi.com/railroadstreetmedia. Your much appreciated contributions will help me cover the costs of producing these videos.
Also, check out this great 3D scan made of Milwaukee's wreck last year by Marine Imaging Technologies: czcams.com/video/4LAAV5w4Rug/video.html
Really a nice report in detail Thanks! I give it a 5 star rating. It really can get nasty on the Great Lake Michigan.
All good 👍🏻
Great video, very interesting! Too bad that there were no survivors and amazing that they didn’t have a radio.
Excellent narrator; superior voice with great English language and pronunciation!
I've been diving on the Milwaukee car ferry dozens of times. And I even dove the John V Moran this year which you mentioned in your video. Even I learned a few things I didn't know previously. Very well done!
My grandma's cousin Tony was on this ship. Passed away at only 19. Did you notice anything noteworthy on your dives?? We'd like to glean any information we can about Tony. Gram passed 3 months shy of her 100th birthday. Wish I could have found info before she passed.
The animation really brings the story to life! It was truly worth the wait. I love Great Lakes maritime history. Weather on the lakes can be savage and with ROROs especially a lot can go wrong really fast due to the design of the ship and all the open space for water to flood into. What a horrific way to go.
One thing I took note of was when they dove her boiler room, the boiler caps were removed to prevent an explosion and still sitting on the cat walk. If she went down stern first would they still have been on the cat walk or would they have slide off toward the stern. It seems they knew she was going down, since they released the steam and made it to the lifeboats and wrote a note. Her replacement is like new, but she out lived the railroads.
The animation at the end really creeped me out! I have a fear of deep water & have no idea why I watch these, lol. Very interesting to see the history of these boats & how they played a part in American history. People so often don't think about the workers who make the world go 'round.
Keep up the good work!
Clear pronunciation and levelheaded narration, it's refreshing, the English language well spoken is informative and direct, great job. Thank you.
After listening to the conversations some people have this day and age I can't understand what in the world they're talking about! Such deplorable use of words, such as like,awesome, ain"t and a lot of expletives. This narrator is to be congratulated .Plus I am enjoying the history of these ferry ships.
@@susanfaulkner2304 I agree with you! I cannot figure out why so Americans especially young Millennials have adopted inner city USA lingo.
Language and society are not static things. English like all languages changes, and yes this means that millennials will not speak the same as previous generations. It’s not horrifying or sad, it just means that there is a appreciation to be less formal and not feel scared of swear words. Again it is not bad, it is just different
Wow. I did not know that there were going to be so many rules for watching, listening and commenting. Glad I'm leaving.
@@michaelciccone2194 Awesome & ain't are certainly not part of inner city lingo.. however, I agree that inner city lingo is quite annoying lol
I was trying to figure out why a railroad channel kept doing videos on ships...and it took me till this one to make the connection that, duh, they're railcar carriers.
Great work documenting these vessels man, keep it up!
As a Brit, I'd call the ship a train ferry. "Car ferry" means automobiles etc.
The guts the crew and captain had to have on these ships.made them a rare breed
I am so glad you covered this topic as a kid and still to this day I love visiting the SS City of Milwaukee. During the tour they had always mentioned The Milwaukee but never anything more then the fact the captin had put a new bathtub in before the sinking.
I love car ferry history, and spent time trying to locate the dock and apron location in North Port. Turns out it's now the marina in North Port. The apron was moved by barge to Frankfort and served many years on the AA as the far west apron. Unfortunately, both of AA aprons were torn out and scrapped with nothing being preserved 😥
Great video! 👍🏻
Love the video!
Great video and although I had not heard of this wreck before I was instantly drawn into the story. My heart goes out to those men who perished. Tragedies like these lead to new understanding, improved saftey protocol and equipment to prevent them from happening again.
It's astonishing how a judge found Grand Trunk liable for less than $500 for 52 souls lost although they paid out $75,000 to the families, yet they kept a 1 million dollar insurance policy on the boat itself! The good old days...
Looking forward to this channel growing. Very good content. Very high quality
Nice work... I watched the broadcast special of the dive that footage came from shortly after it was made.. I have a special interest in this since as a child I traveled several times on the SS Badger with my family in the late 60's and on one trip we were trapped in ice during a blizzard in the middle of the lake until we were rescued by an ice breaker. You might think I would have been terrified at the time and scarred by the experience but my memories are just the opposite. It is one of the most wonderful memories of my childhood. As the Badger heaved mightily from side to side and my parents and sisters were green with seasickness... my brother and I went to the port and starboard sides of the passenger lounge and let our hot wheels cars roll to each other as the ship rolled in the gale... I felt that ship was the safest place on earth. She still sails between Milwaukee and Ludington to this day and her sister ship the Wolverine sits on her keel in Ludington harbor.
amazing work!
Charles M. Hayes, who originally founded the Grand Trunk Railroad, was also lost at sea aboard the Titanic.
Charlevoix! Not a name you hear every day in a CZcams video. Lol I spent a good portion of my life on Beaver Island. (the big island north of the red line at 2:14 ) So, very very familiar with that whole area.. (and the many shipwrecks)... Nasty reefs and shallows around there. And the big boats used to run close to the shore of our islands back in the day to take lee from the bad weather. The Carl D. Bradley famously went down not far from there. There have been so many wrecks in that part of the lake over the past 150 years, most are simply forgotten about. One interesting tale I remember hearing many times, as a few of my friends growing up had personally lost great grandparents, uncles etc. Was the J Oswald Boyd.. A Scottish built tanker that got stuck aground on Simmons reef in 1936. Well the Boyd was carrying, at least 20,000 gallons of gasoline. When the crew abandoned her, that gas pretty much became free for the taking. Everett Cole, the president of our ferry boat company back in those days, along with a few family members and friends. Decided to take the Islands then current ferry boat, the Marold 2, to go salvage barrels of gas. Decks loaded with 55 gallon drums, buckets, pails.. Anything that could hold gasoline. Seems crazy by today's standards... But with the price of gas these days.. I bet someone would still try...as one could imagine, this was incredibly dangerous, as all it woild take was a single spark for everything to go wrong... Well, that spark happened somehow and our fancy new big steel hull ferry boat was found twisted and in peices all over the place, and even on the deck of the boyd once the fire finally went out. The crew of 5, unsurprisingly all lost their lives in the explosion, and the island found itself suddenly without a ferry. As the lake would freeze over pretty solidly shortly after.. There still exists some very old video floating around out there, of people from the island and mainland. Having driven their cars way out to the site over the ice, STILL dangerously attempting to salvage the gas that remained post explosion/fire. Siphoning it into any container they could round up. One of those super crazy stories that's been all but completely lost to history. But still just barely lives on in the memory of Islanders who lost family. It's crazy seeing how easily history can just vanish in time. When I was a kid "the explosion" was something that happened "fifty years ago" and there were plenty of older people around who remembered the day well, who knew the men who were lost. Etc. Now here in 2023, we're coming up on 100 years since it happened. All the people who had living memory of the event, at this point all having passed away at least 20 years ago. Without the internet being a thing, those sorts of stories only live on through oral tradition, or if someone cares enough to put them down in books. Really makes me think about how many other really interesting stories we've lost, or are losing every day, as the old timers who lived in what were certainly more "adventurous" times dissappear and take the stories with them. Thankfully now we have CZcams channels like this one, to clearly document history and forever immortalize tales which would otherwise be lost forever in the relentless march of time
What a sad but fascinating story. They were SO CLOSE to a safe harbor. Very sad.
Love your page! There's an abandoned railroad line I drive past all the time in Middlefield, OH to Warren OH
Well done, thank you.
I remember when I was a kid Early 60 s grandad told me stories of the car ferries He sailed the lakes back in the 30 ¡ 40s Love the old Great Lakes iron
Fantastic story well done 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻Robin . 🇨🇦
Princess Victoria Ferry Disaster, The North Channel, Irish Sea sounds similar, the ''Spray door'' was stoved in by a massive Sea.
1953. A tragedy.
Like to find the box car loaded with "new" Nash cars.
Great video. I love ships and Trains. Thank you.
Great narration on this one too young man.
Please carry on doing what you do as you're very good at it
Very interesting, great job!
I love the historic counts of the old ships and their tragic ends.
Nice animation and texturing.
hey I live right by a old railroad and trolley track that run right next to each other I’m pretty sure it used to run from Sandusky Ohio to Lima Ohio it was built sometime in the 1800s and was abandoned in the 60s or 70s they’re is still a lot of the bridge’s and most of it is still there except the rails I actually farm around a lot of it and use a couple of the bridges to drive equipment across there is definitely a lot of history behind it I think it would be a pretty cool story it would be awesome to see a video made about it if you would like some pictures of it definitely let me know!
Very interesting video. I like your videos. Good research
Good video
Great vid :)
4:09 (and earlier) you twice said 'underestimated' when you meant overestimated btw.
I fish right next to that ship museum every year. Cool to hear the story behind it
You would think the ship took on water causing it to roll and sink, once it started to list and the cargo breaks loose then it’s not long before it’s game over and happens fast...Great work, thanks 🙏🏼
Anyone else watching this while in Milwaukee?
I grew up in Chicagoland but have been to Milwaukee many, many times. This video made me recall eating lunch on the lakefront watching the ships and boats. It also reinforced my respect for Lake Michigan and her sisters; people think "just a lake" but don't realize how powerful she is.
Heyy 👋
Nice video i really like history of the rail car ferry I actually recommend doing a video on the SS Chief Wawatam rail car ferry its my favorite ferry of the great lakes
We tend to get bodies here in Kenosha because of the lake currents
The British Royal family was the biggest shareholder in the Canadian company. At least that's what I was lead yo believe. Spent 45 years living near Port Huron ,Michigan. At one time this city was kind of their home. It is still very prevalent in that area.
At 4:47 on Jake Tran's CZcams video "1971, the year that enslaved humanity"
there is a screen shot of a newspaper of Brooklyn New York 'The Brooklyn Daily Eagle' reporting this story beneath the main headline about 'WALL ST IN PANIC AS STOCKS CRASH", Fear 52 Perished In Lake Michigan, Ferry Missing
Something that I have learned from watching a lot of disaster videos- never, EVER under any circumstances utter the words “last trip”. If you do then you are not coming back alive.
It late now but just another day at work u said she sailed right at a gail storm...a lot of this stuff ive seen empty or full there are no ships made to handle the lake when she pissed..
May the crew rest in peace.
You never change the name of a ship
Leaving the Milwaukee harbor when northeast winds are blowing at 40-50 mph is suicide... or murder... depending on who made the decision. Too bad the crew was forced to go along for the ride...
Lessons learnt from watching this channel: 1. Those car ferries are death traps in bad weather. 2. Never go on a ship with low sterns. 3. Additionally, a low rear gate is no guarantee of survival.
My Grandfather and his 3 brothers all worked on the Pere Marquette .God save the Badger!
11:44 as a resident of St Joesph Michigan, i personally have never heard of how we were tied into this tragedy.
You could sail a lifetime and not see the worst weather that nature can produce. I've lived near the ocean my entire life and nearly drowned a couple of times. You don't cheat death on the ocean. You learn from it, and thank God.
You are aware this is not the ocean right? This ferry sank on Lake Michigan
I'm guessing that the blue water on deck and unsecured cargo led to the top structure being subjected to water intrusion, if not that, the covers might have been to thin to handle a water filling the car deck from top to bottom (in that case the pressure is far far higher then weight of it). Being so flimsy thin it's more paint them steel would be the reason or passed inspection but are totally gone now.
I was adopted to Charlevoix at age 8.
It’s gorgeous.
Musta been a site on this ship going under Main Street bridge on out to brave risland
* Good vid. Though research. 👊😎👍
My first apartment was in Milwaukee. :)
you should do the fp&e rail road and the inter urban service of north east ohio
Great video. One correction. Your pronunciation of" Pere Marquette." We Michiganders pronounce it like " Pier Marquette" its French.
I toured the ship " City of Milwaukee " it was an extraordinarily fascinating. I went down into the " flicker". If was actually kinda creepy. Definitely not a place I'd want to be if the ship was going down.
I love learning about history about boats that have actually sang have you ever did one about the Edmund Fitzgerald
My favorite band was GRAND FUNK RAILROAD
Is your favorite TV show SOUL Train?
Liked & sub'd 👍
Very interesting. I lived in the Pere Marquette area for many years and had never heard the details. Not super important for the story but pointing it out for accuracy it is actually not pronounced Pear Marquette. It is pronounced Pier Marquette.
“Underestimated the rail traffic” what you meant to say was “overestimated” here.
We all heard but only some felt the need to point it out. Loo
Lol is what I meant b4 you correct me. 🤣
Too cheap to add a sea gate, too cheap to have a radio on board--nice goin', Grand Trunk!
The witch of November came early.
A seasoned Captains experiences do not always have the same outcomes (successes) when sailing a familiar route time after time, sometimes the inevitable happens, and it did. When you get right down to it, the Captain is the one who is ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship/crew/carg. Having a 5ft high gate at the stern was clearly insufficient for the job with other ships having taller gates installed is considered a contributing factor in the incident......
It makes no sense for the Judge to use the fees owed to the boat that sank to determine it's value, but not the insurance for it's sinking.
Funny how everytime a captain want to retire, the ship sinks.
What happened to the Grand Haven? I grew up there and it would have been very cool to have it there...did she sink?
It was scrapped in 1969.
ur videos kick ass!
RiP boys..Grand Trunk Western and the Cap pushed til it broke..😔
My grandma's cousin Tony was on this ship. Died at only 19 years old. Where can I find any additional information?
I'm finding conflicting information on the number of souls aboard. I've seen everything from 47 to 54.
How can that be? Everyone's found all of this documentation, yet they can't get the number of people aboard correct? I'm going with 54. Because how terrible would it be to not even be counted if someone was there?
A ship taking her crew is always sad but may those '29 Nash automobiles know the world misses them too
I'm sure my family grieved much more deeply for Grandma's cousin Tony that died at only 19 due to this than some automobile. There is no comparison.
@TessLynnW I was in the room when my grandfather had a stroke and passed. Death is always painful. It still hurt nearly as deep when I totaled my dream car after saving up to get it. Love is not limited to one form. Though I'm sure your uncle Tony and my Grandpa Christopher are getting piss drunk together if he was anything like the master of mischief my Grandpa was.
@@Master_of_Failure I don't agree at all on that one. The loss of an inanimate object can in no way compare to the loss of a loved one. An actual human being with a soul is worth so much more than some bucket of bolts resting at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Correlating the loss as anywhere near the same is honestly kind of shockingly unbelievable.
As a Christian, Jesus died a torturous death to save us. He wouldn't have done that for some inanimate object that is in no way in comparison worth someone's life or soul.
What a horrible way to die. Especially knowing it was coming as they were fighting so hard.
I'm trying to find as much information on my cousin Tony twice removed as I can. Unfortunately not finding a whole lot online thus far. I was hoping to find a photo of the crew so I could see a photo of Tony. My Grandma passed 3 months shy of her 100th birthday. Obviously I was too young to ever have known Tony unfortunately. So I'm not able to ask her any questions at this point. I'm sorry for the loss of your grandfather.
The other articles in 11:40 still remind that as this has happened, the Great Depression was just kicking off.
now do you get Foggy with a 36 knot wind? you could have poor visiblity die to snow or rain but foggy conditions denote still air.
I live by Lake Superior on stormy days rain mist looks kind of like fog. Point being you can not see far out on stormy or even clam rainy days.
@@Crashed131963 Not my point mate fog is a relatively still air phenomenon, once there is lashing rain/hail or snow and strong winds never mind 41 mph winds, fog is not going to be there. Poor visibilty in other weather conditions such rain, hail and snow and even in hurricanes has nothing whatsoever to do with fog.
i noticed when boats get lots water inside them they sink
"Udder".
No Radio in 1929?
Even the Titanic 17 years earlies had ship to shore and ship to ship communication .
Small ferry that crossed a lake, they didn’t assume it was necessary for a radio if the crossing only takes a few hours, and the Titanic didn’t have a radio, it had a Morse signal which had a range that was limited, so they couldn’t contact the shore in the middle of the ocean
@@EperogiLimousine I live 700 meters from lake Superior and calling it a lake is a stretch . More like a small sea and you better have a radio if your crossing it by boat .
@@Crashed131963 Lake Superior is a large lake, just like Lake Baikal, or slave lake.Not a sea, sure waves can happen on them. But I would gladly take a paddle boat across it and not worry. Radios are definitely used now, but we have cellular data so we dint need radio, phones are good
@@EperogiLimousine Lake Baikal isn't even in the top 5. The largest lake in the world by surface area is Lake Superior. The surface of Lake Superior covers 31,700 square miles.
Your not paddling a boat across it .
People have kayaked across the ocean, I wouldn’t bet my safety in it, but it could be done rather feasibly. Lake Superior is not the biggest lake by surface area. Caspian sea (Before you say “it’s a sea!” The Caspian Sea by characteristics is more lake like than a sea.) is larger and contains more water than every Great Lake combined@@Crashed131963
Another, unofficial, definition of RORO is Roll-On, Roll-Over.
I wonder if that $75,000 was split between them or to each? Probably split between the 52 I would think. Not much for a life but more than most people get.
That was way more money back then
Absolutely criminal how the companies liability was limited to whatever garbage they could scrape off the ground but they qualify for a million dollar insurance settlement....seems to me the ship at the end of the thing was worth 1 million and that should have been paid out to the victims.
The second they brought scabs in to build they were doomed
the judge who awarded $400, despite the million dollar insurance, was a bad person
It's good enough for a newspaper, but needs to be censored for CZcams. CZcams IS LAME!
Tedious
As imposing as these ferries looked from the front, with the stern open without any gate? And as if that were not enough, they sent them sailing in bad weather, knowing the wild climate of the lakes? What little common sense. It seems that money was worth more than human life in those times.
Storms were rarely documented, they didn’t know much. They also didn’t expect huge waves on a literal lake, a 4 hour crossing woudl seem unproblematic to them. Not to mention this ship sunk due to the momentum of the cars, not the gate flooding (although that didn’t help)
Did you mean they over estimated their rail traffic? The actual traffic being less causing no need for the additional ships?
Thanks nice work...gail force 9.....ok hold on according to a weather definition...a storm is 48 to 55 knot sustained winds make the term storm more dangerous then a gail force condition which i thought was weird..this is way earlier im wondering when the terms got changed i would think a gail condition sound more dagerous than just the term strom upgrade which calculate 30 mph wind increase an sustaining winds which sustained is the deadly side of it...thanks i was wondering 1900 if terms were changed for any reason...i can guess at a couple..but ill be nice
Dude, you gave us breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert in the first 30 seconds. Draw it out please.
Yeah you cheat death till you don't. Then you get no more attempts. RIP.
In childhood sea hunter tv series. Where they find wreakage of famous series. Please check make video...in your channel
Yeah the ss Milwaukee wreck should be raised
Yeah having the back door open for loading is definatley not gonna work in sept or november when the wind blows signaling get ur asses home an off my lake
It’s pretty ruthless when not a single person survives a shipwreck of this caliber. Completely understandable, still ruthless nonetheless.
Heavy weather bob probably was forced by grand trunk men to make that trip or they would have fired him and he would have lost his seniority and pension
the mates that went to the picture show DID NOT DO THEIR JOB.. HENCE the gate and lack of tie down..... those whom survived BECAUSE THEY ASSUMED....WERE AT FAULT.
Too many irrelevant informercials during this video
You can show aan 100 year old newspapaer picture cant you? Is it simply another millenial Puritan that cant handle reality?
Just a thought
Maybe the train cars helped drag the vessel down if their couplers were still attached.