On April 29, 1909, the Adella Shores was bound for Duluth with a cargo of 9,200 barrels of salt. The ship never arrived. Disappearing in a gale off Whitefish Point, Michigan, the location of the 195-foot wreck remained one of the lake’s unsolved mysteries. But the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum has found it.

Watching the video above, I thought the Adella Shores sounded familiar so I consulted my shipwreck tomes. I found it on page 145 of Lake Superior’s “Shipwreck Coast” by Frederick Stonehouse (1988 edition), which someone anonymously left on my porch one day. Being Aquaman has its benefits. There we read that the Adella Shores had once sunk in shallow water in the Duluth harbor in 1901, but was refloated.

We also read the testimony of Captain Millen of the steamer Daniel J. Morrell, who had been leading the Adella Shores and other ships through ice when the 1909 storm did its collecting:

I saw her while we were in Whitefish Bay, Thursday afternoon. She crept along behind several of us, following in our wake through the ice. We cleared Whitefish Point about 7 p.m. and I judge the Shores was at that time about two miles in our rear. A fierce northeast gale was blowing and constantly getting stronger. In my opinion, the Shores got a few miles out and found things too tough. She was possibly struck by a big cake of ice which started a leak. Captain Holmes then doubtlessly put about and headed for under the Point. With that gale blowing a bad seas was running over there. He doubtlessly got in the trough and with a leak filling her up, she simply went out from under them.