Certainly the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the best-known catastrophes on the Great Lakes. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a Great Lakes freighter, which sank in Lake Superior in a storm on November 10,1975, with the loss of the entire crew. When she was launched in 1958 she was the largest boat on the Great Lakes and remains to this day the largest boat that has sunk.

For 17 years she had carried taconite, which is the variety of iron formation consisting of 15% iron and sedimentary rock and the iron minerals are inter-layered with Quartz, chert or carbonate from mines near Duluth, Minnesota. This ship was considered a workhorse, setting seasonal haul records six times.

Boat watchers loved the Fitzgerald due to her size, her record-breaking performance and her DJ Captain, as he piped music through the intercom all over the ship day and night. The day she went down she was fully loaded and was caught in a massive winter storm with near hurricane force winds and waves up to 35 feet high. No bodies were recovered from her crew of 29.

At the request of the families the bronze bell was recovered by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. It is not really known exactly why she went down but her sinking changed the regulations for Great Lakes shipping. The new regulations included mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspections of the vessels