12th Street beach wreck, year unknown
Just south of the Adler Planetarium, an unidentified shipwreck is embedded in the sand. Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago president John Bell says that it’s probably the closest wreck to shore in the area; you can actually walk to it. Shoreline erosion caused by the construction of the planetarium in 1925 exposed the hull of the schooner, which is an estimated 140 feet long. The stern end of the ship has been paved over, but Bell says that “on a good day, you can see the ribs.”
L.R. Doty, 1898
A 291-foot wooden steamship, the L.R. Doty was carrying 107,000 bushels of corn to Ontario when a violent storm kicked up, breaking the line between the ship and a schooner she was pulling and ultimately sinking the larger ship. All 17 people on board died, as well as the ship’s two cats, Dewey and Watson. The wreck was discovered just three years ago, upright in 300 feet of water with corn still in its hold. Twenty years earlier a fisherman had noticed a large obstruction on the bottom of the lake snagging his nets, but diving technology wasn’t as advanced then as it is now; as Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association president Brendan Baillod told NPR after the discovery, “at that time it might as well have been on the moon.” Baillod, who led the search for the shipwreck after diving technology improved, believes that the bodies of the people who died on the ship are still inside, preserved by the cold and intact due to lack of predators.
