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LeoPlumtree, thanks for answering the question. Here is more information.

It was on November 10, 1975 when the freighter S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior Wisconsin bound for Detroit Michigan. She carried a load of 26,000 tons of iron ore pellets. At 729 feet long and 75 feet wide, she was the largest vessel on the Great Lakes.

Ahead of her on Lake Superior was the worst storm of that winter. Winds up to 60mph and waves up to 30 feet high. She tried to seek shelter at Whitefish Bay when she began to take on water and listed to starboard. Another freighter, the S. S. Arthur M. Anderson, was within 10 miles of her around 7pm. Anderson's bridge watchstanders had radio and radar contact and could see her navigational lights. Then suddenly the lights were gone along with the radar blip. Radio contact could not be re-established. The S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald had disappeared without issuing a mayday call. There was no sign of her 29 crew members.

Up until this time, she was just another shipwreck on the Great Lakes. But the following year, 1976, Gordon Lightfoot recorded a song titled "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The haunting music and lyrics is what got me interested in this wreck.

To read the lyrics, click here.

To hear a sample of that song, click here and scroll about 1/3 the way down to the Listen To Samples section. Select song #14.