The Edmund Fitzgerald in the Soo Locks

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Never before published photo of the Edmund Fitzgerald, taken only months before it was lost with all hands in Lake Superior. Remember, you saw if first on Flickr! My father-in-law took this shot. He told my wife that he wasn't taking a picture of the Big Fitz; he just wanted a photo of the locks, and this happened to be in the photo. Unfortunately, the negative is long gone and this photo was printed on some sort of rough-coated matte paper so that it could be mailed as a postcard. My father-in-law didn't realize until months after the sinking that he had a picture of this vessel. The photo was taken in August 1975; the Edmund Fitgerald sank in November of that year. It was, ironically, the sinking that made this ship famous. After it was built it was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, but other than that, it was just another anonymous working vessel plying the waters between Wisconsin and Michigan.

The Edmund Fitzgerald in the Soo Locks, photo by bill.d.

Through Gordon Lightfoot’s song, the Edmund Fitzgerald has become an icon for the power of the Great Lakes. Nowhere can you see it better than Joseph Fulton’s video of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a fantastic piece of film-making that you need to see if you haven’t already.

What I suspect that a lot of people forget (because I know I do) is that the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was just one of many ships plying the Great Lakes. About the photo above, Bill writes:

My father-in-law took this shot. He told my wife that he wasn’t taking a picture of the Big Fitz; he just wanted a photo of the locks, and this happened to be in the photo. Unfortunately, the negative is long gone and this photo was printed on some sort of rough-coated matte paper so that it could be mailed as a postcard.

My father-in-law didn’t realize until months after the sinking that he had a picture of this vessel.

The photo was taken in August 1975; the Edmund Fitzgerald sank November 10th of that year. It was, ironically, the sinking that made this ship famous. After it was built in 1958, until 1971, it was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, but other than that, it was just another anonymous working vessel plying the waters between Wisconsin and Michigan.

Check it out background big and see the back of the postcard. Visit the links below for more about the SS Edmund Fitzgerald:

More shipwrecks on Absolute Michigan and Michigan in Pictures.

One thought on “The Edmund Fitzgerald in the Soo Locks”

  1. I KNEW we saw it then! We were on a famous ou trip and I recall waving at the men on board. I was 11 years old. When the song came out, I knew it was the boat I had seen in August 1975.

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