Located 0.35 miles southwest of the Marinette Harbor entrance, in the town of Marinette, Marinette County, Wisconsin, the steambarge Sydney O. Neff sits upright on the sandy bottom of Green Bay in 10 to 15 feet of water. The ship remains broken on the lakebed due to years of wind, wave, and ice action. Large sections of its upper hull structure are gone due to the vessel’s method of abandonment, and years of wave and ice action, although most of the lower hull remains extant.

Sidney O. NeffI was launched on 25 November 1890 from the Burger & Burger shipyard in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The vessel operated in the Great Lakes lumber trade throughout its career. In 1898, Sidney O. Neff was converted into a single screw steambarge at the Milwaukee Dry Dock Company, with the addition of a fore-and-aft compound engine, and a boiler. After a brief name change to M.C. & M.C. No. 2, from 1919 to 1924, when the vessel was renamed Sidney O. NeffI. In April 1934, the vessel sat at harbor in Marinette awaiting the outcome of a court case. In the end, the vessel was deemed to be unseaworthy and left abandoned in the Menominee River at the east end of the Marinette Fuel & Dock Company slip, until 1939, when it’s machinery was salvaged and the vessel was towed outside of the Marinette harbor and abandoned in 10 feet of water.

Today, the vessel sits upright and broken on the lake bottom with many of its hull components extant and artifacts located within the hull, including the vessel’s engine and propeller. As an early converted wooden steambarge, Sidney O. Neff provides historians and archaeologists the rare chance to study early converted wooden steambarge construction and the Great Lakes lumber trade.

State and federal 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.

Wisconsin Shipwrecks