Argo 1937
Marker: recorded wreck position (Interwar).
Key facts
| Name | Argo | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1937 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Interwar | derived from year |
| Ship type | ship, shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Storm or weather | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nearest coast | United States | Natural Earth (public domain) |
| Position | 41.6392, -82.4931 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
The Argo is a tank barge that sank in Lake Erie on October 20, 1937. It was carrying nearly 200,000 gallons (4,762 barrels) of crude oil and benzol when it foundered in a storm off Pelee Island. The Argo was not designed for open waters. In 2013 the wreck was assessed to be the Great Lakes shipwreck most likely to create an environmental disaster. The wreck sat at the bottom of the lake for nearly 78 years before it was discovered in 2015. A three-month cleanup effort involving the U.S. Coast Guard, Canadian authorities, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration extracted nearly 50,000 gallons of contaminated water from the wreck.
Diving & visiting
On August 28, 2015, the sunken wreck was detected by Tom Kowalczk, a member of the Cleveland Underwater Explorers (CLUE). Equipped with a side-scan sonar system, Kowalczk had been looking for another wreck, that of the wooden schooner Lexington, that sank in 1846 with a cargo of 110 barrels of whiskey and a safe rumored to contain gold.
The wreck of the Argo was discovered inside the U.S. line, eight miles east of Kelley's Island Shoal, and about five or six miles south of the location historically given for the barge, in Canadian waters, about 13 miles north of Lakeside in western Lake Erie.
Location
- Recorded position: 41.6392, -82.4931 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Nearest coast: United States
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Argo (barge) (revision 1363333465), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Discovery”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- SS Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 1909 · 192 km
- Sport 1920 · 199 km
Browse more: North America wrecks · wrecks off United States · Interwar