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A mother was enjoying a day at the beach recently with her 9-year-old son when the two of them unexpectedly stumbled upon a small piece of Midwestern history: a century-old shipwreck.
Hannah Damon, director of outreach and administration at Camp Amnicon Adventures and Retreats in South Range, Wisconsin, made the discovery while spending time with her son along the camp’s sandy shoreline.
The shipwreck is the A.H. Pitz, a steam-powered tugboat built in 1923. It was abandoned in 1951.
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Although Damon had known about the sunken vessel for years, she had never actually seen it until unusually clear water gave her and her son a rare glimpse of its remains.
“We started seeing beams and cables and this massive pipe, and it was like, wait a minute, this is a shipwreck, this is a shipwreck,” Damon told Digital on Thursday.
Hannah Damon, pictured at right, spotted the historic shipwreck while exploring a half-mile stretch of sandy shoreline at Camp Amnicon in South Range, Wisconsin. (Camp Amnicon)
Thrilled by the unexpected sighting, Damon rushed to grab her camera.
“I ran back to shore and I got my camera, and I was like, OK, you are not allowed to splash me, this is a really exciting discovery,” Damon recalled telling her son.
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Video taken by Damon shows the remains of the tugboat beneath clear water, with weathered wooden beams and other debris visible along the lakebed.
Damon described the water as “crystal clear” and glassy, an unusual sight along that stretch of Lake Superior.
A rare stretch of clear water revealed the remains of a nearly 70-foot-long tugboat that had been submerged in Lake Superior for decades. (Camp Amnicon)
The area sits within the Lake Superior clay plain, where the surrounding soil is largely composed of clay, which can make the water murky and obscure objects beneath the surface.
Damon said the wreck is fully submerged and usually difficult to see.
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“I was actually just down back at the beach yesterday, and again, the water was calm, but it was murky again,” Damon said.
“I hope it’s one of those things that, every once in a while, if you know where to look, you’ll be able to find it. But it’s definitely a rare find. It’s really exciting.”
“It was probably the closest thing to viral the Camp Amnicon has ever experienced,” Damon (pictured center) told Digital. (Camp Amnicon)
The A.H. Pitz was built in 1923 for the McMullen and Pitz Construction Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and named after Armond Pitz, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The nearly 70-foot-long tugboat changed ownership several times before it was abandoned at the mouth of the Amnicon River in 1951.
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Damon said she’d heard the tugboat was intentionally sunk in 1951 to help stabilize a sandbar along the beach.
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“Even after swimming [here] and [being] on this particular beach for 10 or 11 years in a row, I had just never actually seen the shipwreck before,” she said.
“It was really exciting to find it, to come across it, and I just couldn’t wait to share it with the world.”
“I just couldn’t wait to share it with the world.”
Damon later showed footage of the shipwreck on social media, where others shared their own memories of the vessel.
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“It was probably the closest thing to ‘viral’ the Camp Amnicon has ever experienced,” Damon told Digital.
The historic tugboat is fully submerged and generally difficult to spot, making Damon’s unexpected discovery along Lake Superior particularly unusual. (Camp Amnicon)
Some commenters recalled seeing the vessel as far back as 1967, while others recognized its location along the Lake Superior shoreline.
Damon said the response has helped reconnect members of the community through a shared piece of local history.
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“I think that’s the cool thing about archaeology and history and local culture, that this kind of stuff can bring us together,” she said.
