145-Year-Old Civil War-Era Barge Found Intact in Wisconsin River

Scientists scanning the Fox River for one 19th-century wreck stumbled upon another—145 years after it vanished in flames.

Using a high-resolution Swedish sidescan sonar, the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association (WUAA) and the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) were actually hunting the Berlin City, a river steamboat that sank in 1870. Instead, their screens lit up with the unmistakable outline of an intact 90-foot hull just 100 yards from the old railroad bridge caissons.

Experts believe the newly mapped wreck is the L.W. Crane, a barge built in 1865 that caught fire in the summer of 1880, was cut loose, and burned to the waterline before slipping beneath the murky surface. "We assumed she was buried," admitted WUAA president Brendon Baillod, "so seeing the entire hull still visible was a shock."

Diving isn’t an option—the Fox River’s silt turns daylight into ink and currents into whirlpools. Maritime archaeologist Jordan Ciesielczyk recalls a past dive so dark he "couldn’t see my hands in front of my face." Yet context clues—size, shape, and location—make the identification "a very strong possibility." No artifacts have surfaced yet, but further non-invasive surveys are planned.

The accidental find joins a growing flotilla of Midwestern rediscoveries; in May, a fisherman spotted the lumber schooner J.C. Ames resting in Lake Michigan, scuttled in 1923. For now, the L.W. Crane rests quietly again, its charred timbers a ghostly reminder that rivers keep secrets better than any vault.