A mother and her nine-year-old son walking the shoreline of Lake Superior recently spotted something unexpected poking through the murky water: the submerged remains of a tugboat built more than a century ago.
Hannah Damon, director of outreach and administration at Camp Amnicon Adventures and Retreats in South Range, Wisconsin, had heard stories about a shipwreck in the area for years but never expected to see it herself. That changed during her walk, according to Fox News, which first reported the find on Friday.
“We started seeing beams and cables and this massive pipe, and it was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is a shipwreck! This is a shipwreck,'” Damon told Fox News.
Damon recorded video and photos of the wreck, which sits just beneath the surface in an area of the lake known for its clay plain. The wreck has since been identified as the A.H. Pitz, a tugboat built in 1923.
A Working Boat’s History
According to the Wisconsin Shipwrecks website, the A.H. Pitz was built for the McMullen and Pitz Construction Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and named for Armond Pitz of that company. The boat changed hands several times over the following decades: it was sold in 1944 to Northern Hardwood Veneers Company and relocated to Duluth, Minnesota; sold again in 1945 to Walter W. Bowe; and sold once more in 1947 to E.C. Knudson, a dry dock company based in Superior, Wisconsin.
The tugboat was ultimately scuttled and abandoned in 1951, Fox News reported.
Because the lakebed in that stretch of Lake Superior is composed largely of clay, the water can turn murky and conceal wrecks for long stretches of time, even when they lie close to the surface, as the fully submerged A.H. Pitz does.
“I hope it’s one of those things that, every once in a while, if you know where to look, you’ll be able to find it. But it’s definitely a rare find. It’s really exciting,” Damon said.
A Window Into Maritime History
Tamara Thomsen, a maritime archeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society, said sightings like this one offer a fleeting chance for the public to connect with the region’s shipping past.
“It’s very exciting when these shipwrecks become uncovered, and again, it renews this enthusiasm about maritime history. Take advantage of it being uncovered now, go and see it now if you can. And enjoy it for the time that it is exposed.”
Thomsen’s comments underscore that the wreck’s visibility may not last. Shifting clay and water conditions in the area have a history of covering and uncovering submerged objects, meaning the A.H. Pitz could disappear from view again as unpredictably as it emerged.
