ALGOMA, Wis. - The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Trinidad Shipwreck in the National Register of Historic Places on July 3, 2024. The schooner is located in Lake Michigan, near Kewaunee County.

Trinidad is a schooner constructed in 1867 by Master shipwright William Keefe in Grand Island, New York; this commission provided the opportunity for Keefe to open his own yard. The ship operated in the Great Lakes through the grain and coal trades until 1881. On May 11, 1881, the Trinidad was sailing from Sturgeon Bay, Door County, with coal planned to be unloaded in Milwaukee and beginning a career in the lumber trade when it encountered significant seas off the coast. The vessel was slowly leaking over several years from traversing the Great Lakes in heavy weather. Early in the morning, the ship suddenly lurched forward and began to sink rapidly until the vessel quickly settled. The captain and crew were able to escape in a small yawl boat from the stern.

The vessel lies in a lakebed below the surface in Lake Michigan with the bow, deck machinery, stern cabin, stern and the ship’s hull intact. Additionally, most of the wire rigging remains on site. As a canaller, a unique vessel type developed for traversing the Great Lakes and the Welland Canal locks in Canada, the Trinidad was designed to carry the maximum amount of cargo through the locks. It transported grain from Midwestern ports in exchange for coal from New York and Ontario, Canada. Trinidad provides historians and archaeologists the rare chance to study wooden schooner construction and the grain and coal trades.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structures 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: Wisconsin Shipwrecks.

Additional information for the Trinidad Shipwreck is available at:

https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/NationalRegister/NR2799

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: https://wisconsinhistory.org/hp/register/

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.