About four months after being placed on the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places, you can now find an Algoma shipwreck on another list of distinction.

 

Last week, the schooner Margaret A. Muir was placed on the National Register of Historic Places after being placed on the State Register in March. The Margaret A. Muir was a 130-foot ship built in Manitowoc to supplement the grain trade across the Great Lakes. The ship was on its way to South Chicago with a full load of bulk salt from Michigan when it encountered rough winds after clearing the Straits of Mackinac. It was not until the Margaret A. Muir was near Ahnapee (present-day Algoma) that it was realized that the ship was taking on water, and it eventually sank on September 30th, 1893.

 

In May 2024, the Margaret A. Muir was discovered by Brendon Baillod, Robert Jaeck, and Kevin Cullen, who have found three Algoma-area shipwrecks within an approximately two-year time frame. Baillod said a lot of work goes into their process to discover these ships lost in time after discovering the John Evenson shipwreck last fall.

 

Now that the Margaret A. Muir is listed on both registers, state and federal laws protect the shipwreck, and divers are not allowed to remove artifacts from the site when visiting. The Jens Jensen-designed Root River Parks in Racine County were also named to the National Register of Historic Places last week. Jensen is responsible for founding The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay, creating the curvy road leading to Northport, and establishing The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor.