Fifty-one years ago today — Nov. 10, 1975 — the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a Lake Superior storm with all 29 crew members aboard, and the exact cause has never been determined. The last ship to see her is now sitting in Toledo.

The Arthur M. Anderson, a 767-foot Great Lakes bulk freighter launched in 1952 in Lorain, Ohio, was trailing the Fitzgerald through that storm. She was the last ship to have visual, radio and radar contact with the Fitzgerald before she vanished — the Fitzgerald’s final radio message to the Anderson, “We are holding our own,” is now part of Great Lakes legend. The Anderson was also the first rescue ship on the scene, searching in vain for survivors.

The Anderson went on to work the lakes for five more decades. And right now, on the 51st anniversary of the sinking, the most famous shipwreck witness in Great Lakes history is laid up in Toledo, where she has been since Jan. 17, 2025, awaiting a return to service pending economic demand, according to Capt. Richard A. Laskey, fleet manager for Key Lakes Inc./Great Lakes Fleet.

Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” made the story immortal — but the Anderson is the living link to that night, and she is sitting in Toledo’s own harbor.

Source: Detroit Free Press

*Photo: Wikimedia Commons — the Arthur M. Anderson unloading at Huron, Ohio, in 2008.*