It was a normal evening in mid-July as Matt Olson sat at home on his computer, scanning satellite photos of Lake Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Olson, who owns the tour company Door County Adventure Rafting, regularly used images taken from orbit to help identify interesting sights and new places to take his customers. As he virtually explored the shallow waters of Rowleys Bay, near the northern tip of the long, narrow peninsula that makes up Door County, Wisconsin, Olson spotted a bloblike discoloration in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t know it at the time, but Olson had just stumbled on a long-lost shipwreck<\/a> \u2014 the remains of a vessel that sunk in 1887. His serendipitous find set off an investigation by the Wisconsin Historical Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Door County is no stranger to shipwrecks<\/a>. More than 250 known wrecks are scattered in the waters around the peninsula, owing to the area\u2019s often challenging sailing conditions. These discoveries, however, help fill in the region\u2019s maritime history, allowing people to better understand how the waterways of the Great Lakes were used over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wreck was located in shallow waters, at a depth of about 20 feet, according to Olson. From what he could tell, the bottom of the hull was largely intact, but the sides of the ship had split open and flattened out like a fillet \u2014 likely due to 138 years of being battered by wind, waves and ice, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tamara Thomsen, a maritime archaeologist at the historical society\u2019s State Historic Preservation Office, spent several weeks combing through a database of newspaper clippings, archival insurance documents and port enrollments, which are similar to motor vehicle registrations.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomsen and her colleagues also conducted diving missions to search for any identifying characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the vessel\u2019s appearance and the shipwreck\u2019s general location, the historical society was able to confirm that Olson had found the remains of the long-lost Frank D. Barker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really cool about this wreck is that the whole thing is there,\u201d Thomsen said. \u201cIt\u2019s spread out on the bottom, almost like pieces of a puzzle that you could assemble in your mind and put back together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 137-foot Frank D. Barker was constructed out of wood in 1867 by a veteran shipbuilder named Simon G. Johnson from Clayton, New York. It was a canaller, which is a type of vessel uniquely designed to operate on the Great Lakes, Thomsen said. Canallers were built to sail through the Welland Canal, a series of locks and both natural and modified waterways that enabled ships to bypass Niagara Falls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n