Shipwreck · Lake Michigan · Foundered
PS Alpena
A paddlewheel steamship built in 1866, lost on Lake Michigan in 1880. The record: “Sunk in Lake Michigan, near Wisconsin during the "Big Blow" storm of 15 October 1880.”
The vessel
On the record
- Type
- Paddlewheel steamship
- Builder
- Thomas Arnold of Gallagher & Company at Marine City, Michigan
- Completed
- 1866
- Length
- 197 ft (60 m)
- Beam
- 27 ft (8 m)
- Tonnage
- 654 tons
- Propulsion
- a pair of 24 ft radius side wheels
- Fate
- Sunk in Lake Michigan, near Wisconsin during the "Big Blow" storm of 15 October 1880.
- Lake
- Lake Michigan
- Coordinates
- 42.7800° N, 86.9475° W
The same decade
Michigan losses of the 1880s
- SS Michigan1885 · foundered
- SS Selah Chamberlain1886 · collision
- SS Vernon1887 · foundered
On the bottom nearby
Nearest Michigan wrecks
- SS Milwaukee (b. 1868)3.9 mi
- SS Michigan22 mi · lost 1885
- SS L.R. Doty25 mi · lost 1898
- SS John V. Moran30 mi · lost 1899
- SS Lac La Belle32 mi
- Rosinco36 mi · lost 1928
Straight-line distance between published positions.
Source
Vessel facts on this page come from the infobox of the English Wikipedia article PS Alpena, retrieved 2026-10-11. We print the fields as recorded and add nothing; a missing field means the record is silent. Tonnage and dimensions were often measured more than one way in their day, so they can differ between sources.
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