On July 18, 1868, the steamer ST. ALBANS was launched at Cleveland for the Northern Transportation Company’s fleet. She had 17 staterooms and during the winter months ran between Milwaukee and Ludington and Manistee. She measured 138 feet in length and 25 feet in beam.
On January 30, 1881, Milwaukee had been experiencing a fierce snow storm but when the alarm was sounded for what was noticed off shore, hundreds came out to help. This was the day the package and passenger steamer ST. ALBANS was cut through by ice and went down about 16 miles northeast of Milwaukee. Attempts were made to stop the leak but her fires went out and the order to abandon was given. Crew and passengers got into the small boats and safely made shore in Milwaukee. A few suffered frost bite. She had a cargo of flour and livestock enroute from Milwaukee to Ludington.
The wreck was found by Milwaukee diver Kent Bellrichard in 1975, on the same day he found the EMBA which was intentionally scuttled in 1932.
Photographer, diver and artist Cal Kothrade shares a few of his beautiful underwater photos and the story of his dives on the steamer ST. ALBANS.
By the time I finally got a chance to dive the ST. ALBANS, I was ready. It is just out of recreational range at 160′-165 feet deep several miles east of Milwaukee’s harbor. At that depth the dive is most certainly a technical dive, requiring decompression stops and perhaps even high concentrations of oxygen upon returning to the surface. I had been through the appropriate training courses that prepared me for this type of dive a few years prior, but had no idea what to expect once reaching the wreck site.
I was pleasantly surprised by the incredible visibility we had my first time diving it, (many times better vis is a byproduct of the deeper wrecks), and we had at least eighty feet of clear Michigan water in addition to lots of natural light. What really made this wreck stand out for me was the massive debris field, flotsam everywhere: wall panels, deck sections, smoke stack, mast, and just general pieces of the ship scattered over a vast expanse of flat, sandy bottom. The ship itself is relatively intact, though the upper cabins and pilot house are no longer in place, quite possibly being the aforementioned debris. The bow section is ‘torn’ from the rest of the hull and leans slightly over to the starboard side. Her anchors have long since been recovered by ambitious divers from a more liberal time when the taking of wreck items was not only legal, but ‘the thing to do’. Her stern section still stands upright displaying a variety of maritime goodies such as the steam engine and boilers that provided the power to turn her prop, a steam driven capstan for hauling in the stern anchor and docking lines, as well as the rudder which is still right where it ought to be, albeit turned slightly to starboard.
The ST. ALBANS is small enough a diver can take in the entirety of the vessel from bow to stern in one dive, but because there are so many small pieces of debris, and interesting parts of the ship to view, one dive really isn’t enough. In subsequent dives on the wreck, I never saw visibility quite as good as the first time, and for whatever reason I also failed to capture photos that were any better than my initial outing. Despite my own shortcomings and those of the dive Gods, I still have great memories of diving one of my very first technical depth shipwrecks.
Images were created with a Canon T1-I Rebel DSLR mated to a Canon 10-22mm super-wide rectilinear lens, in an Ikelite housing using natural light and Ikelite DS-161 Movie strobes X2. Post production was performed in Adobe Lightroom.
Photo at top of page St. ALBANS stern
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Cal Kothrade is the Shipwreck Ambassador of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society, a diver, a photographer and an artist. His work can be viewed at www.calsworld.net and a wall of his photos are on display at Milwaukee’s Riverfront Pizzeria.
