Just over 0.15 miles northeast of the Baileys Harbor marina entrance, in the town of Baileys Harbor, Door County, Wisconsin, the schooner Peoria lies in the sandy bottom of the bay of Baileys Harbor in seven feet of water. The ship remains mostly intact, embedded in the moving sand up to its deck shelf, although the vessel’s deck planking is gone. The furthest extent of the vessel’s bow and stern (stempost and sternpost) remain buried beneath the sand.

Peoria was built by Master Carpenter, Alanson Gilmore at Black River, Ohio over the winter of 1853-54. The vessel operated in the Great Lakes grain, lumber, and other bulk cargo trades throughout its career. Peoria experienced many groundings and had to be repaired multiple times; however, its ship lines remained the same. On 10 November 1901, Peoria was bound from Charlevoix, Michigan with a cargo of hardwood lumber, when it came into Baileys Harbor to wait out a storm. In the night, the anchors slipped, and with the strong wind and waves, the vessel was pushed far up into shallow water in front of the Baileys Harbor Range Lights, settling into the sand quickly. Men from the Baileys Harbor Life-Saving Station were able to reach the vessel and rescue the crew of six, but the vessel remained stuck. No insurance was carried on the ship, and it was valued at only $2,000. The cargo was salvaged, the vessel was stripped, and rendered a total loss.

Today, the vessel sits upright and largely intact on the lake bottom with most of its hull components still there. As an early wooden schooner in Wisconsin waters, Peoria provides historians and archaeologists the rare chance to study wooden schooner construction and the grain, lumber, and other bulk cargo trades.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing, or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime. More information on Wisconsin’s historic shipwrecks may be found by visiting Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Shipwrecks website.

Wisconsin Shipwrecks