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Canal Schooner Walter B. Allen
Canal schooner Walter B. Allen. In April 1880, after a career of carrying grain and coal across the Great Lakes, Walter B. Allen ran ashore on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan during a gale and sank to the bottom of the lake during recovery efforts. Today, it sits upright in 160 feet of water. Because the cold freshwater of the Great Lakes preserves wrecks remarkably well, the lakes offer some of the best conditions in the world for studying historic shipwrecks.