Wisconsin shipwreck named to State Register of Historic Places
TOWN OF HOLLAND – The Advance Shipwreck, in Lake Michigan near the town of Holland in Sheboygan County, has been added to the State Register of Historic Places.
Built in Milwaukee in 1853, Advance operated in the Great Lakes lumber and grain trades throughout its career.
In September 1885, the vessel capsized southeast of Sheboygan. The captain, four crewmembers and two passengers made it to the vessel’s yawl, but it sank within 200 feet of shore when the small boat overturned in the crashing surf, leaving only one survivor.
Today, the vessel sits upright and broken on the lake bottom with most of its hull components extant with artifacts located within the hull, including the vessel’s centerboard, windlass, bowsprit and jibboom, Wisconsin Historical Society said in a news release.
The release added that the Advance shipwreck provides historians and archaeologists the chance to study early schooner construction.
The State Register is Wisconsin’s official list of state properties determined to be significant to Wisconsin’s heritage. The State Historic Preservation Office at the Wisconsin Historical Society administers both the State Register and National Register in Wisconsin.
State and federal laws protect the shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting the site. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime.
More about Wisconsin’s historic shipwrecks can be found by visiting Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Shipwrecks website at www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org/Home#anchor3.