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Milwaukee, WI. - The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Transfer Shipwreck in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, on the National Register of Historic Places.  N­ational Register designation provides access to certain benefits, including qualification for grants and for rehabilitation income tax credits, while it does not restrict private property owners in the use of their property. 

The Transfer Shipwreck lies in 120 feet of water on the bottom of Lake Michigan. The vessel remains broken on the lakebed, although all construction components of the vessel remain on site. Transfer was launched as the schooner barge William McGregor at the Linn & Craig Shipyard in Gibraltar, Michigan in 1872, and built for the Northwestern Transportation Company of Detroit, Michigan. The schooner barge was towed primarily by the steamer R.J. Hackett as a consort and carried coal between ports on Lakes Erie and Superior. In 1911, William McGregor was purchased by the Milwaukee-Western Fuel Company and renamed Transfer. In 1915, Transfer was purchased by The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company (TMER&L Co.) and used to transport coal from the company’s coal yards in Milwaukee’s harbor to various powerhouses along the Milwaukee River. In 1923, the aging Transfer was replaced by the newly converted self-unloading schooner barge E.M.B.A. Transfer was towed 6.0 miles off Milwaukee and sunk. 

As one of only three known and two remaining converted self-unloading barges in Wisconsin waters, Transfer provides historians and archaeologists the rare chance to study the construction of the vessel, its conversion to a self-unloading barge, and the mechanics of the self-unloading equipment used on board.

The National Register is the official list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.                                                                                                                                                       

State laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this 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.

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit ­­­­www.wisconsinhistory.org. 

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.

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