Soon the bells will toll at Mariner's Church on Jefferson Avenue. They will recall a night 30 years ago and the greatest mystery of the Great Lakes.
Described as an inland hurricane, 90-mile per hour winds and 30-foot waves tore across Lake Superior that night. Two freighters battled the storm as the Arthur Anderson steamed behind the ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald when all contact was lost. Twenty-nine crewmen died in one the most enduring mysteries of the Great Lakes. So, what happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald?
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The giant freighter carrying 26,000 tons of ore sank in a matter of seconds 17 miles off shore. The Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point in the Upper Peninsula now pays tribute to those 29 mariners who lost their lives battling the big lake .
What caused it to sink? Some speculate that faulty hatch covers allowed water to fill the cargo hold, and that at about 7:15 p.m. she plunged head first into a wall of water and never came up.
Or that the freghter was overloaded, causing her to sit too low, fatally vulnerable to the pounding waves. No witnesses survived to help answer those questions.
We will never know what really happened that night 30 years ago. Special ceremonies happen Thursday on Belle Isle as both the memories and the questions continue.