The Australasia was launched on 17 September 1884 from the James Davidson shipyard in West Bay City, Michigan. She was the ninth hull launched from the yard, and her construction was accomplished with a crew of 150 men at a cost of $150,000. At that time, she was the largest wooden ship ever built, and her launch was accompanied by much fanfare. The Australasia moved immense bulk cargoes across the Great Lakes so efficiently that she successfully competed with larger, more modern steel ships at a time when wooden vessels were quickly becoming obsolete.

Like other Davidson steamers, the Australasia generally towed a large wooden schooner barge as a consort, which gave the wooden vessels a competitive edge over the larger steel bulk carriers that were appearing on the Great Lakes. Working in tandem, a wooden steamer towing a consort could carry between 7,500 and 8,000 tons - significantly more cargo than the larger steel bulk carriers, but without a significant increase in operating costs. Continuing advances in boiler and engine technology gave the bulk carriers enough power to efficiently tow one or more consorts, effectively doubling or tripling the amount of cargo per trip. The consort system also had an advantage in initial construction costs. The cost of constructing a wooden steamer and consort was 50 - 70% of the cost of constructing a single steel vessel with a cargo capacity comparable to the two wooden vessels.

On 17 October 1896, the Australasia caught fire near Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, and was scuttled in 15 feet of water south of Cave Point in Whitefish Bay. Declared a total loss, the vessel's cargo and machinery were salvaged, but the rest of the hull was abandoned and forgotten until its recent rediscovery. Mostly buried in sand, the Australasia wreck site has remained lightly visited by divers and very little site disturbance has occurred. Today, with the majority of the hull still buried beneath the sand bottom, the Australasia presents vast opportunities for further documentation and discovery on how one of the Great Lakes' greatest shipbuilders pushed the known limits of wooden vessel construction.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this shipwreck site. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime. More information on Wisconsin's historic shipwrecks may be found by visiting Wisconsin's Great Lakes Shipwrecks website.