New Shipwrecks Discovered at Bottom of Lake Minnetonka

Divers have confirmed that several sonar anomalies detected last year at the bottom of Lake Minnetonka are previously undiscovered nautical wreck sites.

"It's exciting," Dr. Ann Merriman said just hours after she and her husband, Chris, returned to Wayzata from a Monday dive during which they discovered a house boat in Crystal Bay.

Merriman and her husband are the founders and operators of the nonprofit Maritime Heritage Minnesota. The two, along with a team of volunteers, have surveyed nautical points of  archaeological interest throughout Minnesota and spent hundreds of hours searching Lake Minnetonka for possible wrecks.

The new Lake Minnetonka wreck sites found this season, as well as data collected at other locations, will be formally documented with state historians. Additional information, including coordinates, may be available in the coming months.

Check back this week for more on Maritime Heritage Minnesota, including the organization's quest to establish Lake Minnetonka as a national historical district, the laws governing shipwrecks in Minnesota and some of the nautical gems still undiscovered.

The Missing Priscilla

Previously a sonar anomaly designated “Wreck 1,” a tugboat named the Priscilla has been located and positively identified somewhere in lower Lake Minnetonka.

The site, according to Dr. Merriman, is “pristine,” and the Priscilla has not been touched since she sank sometime between 1939 and 1945.

The Hennepin County Water Patrol heard about Maritime Heritage Minnesota's dive plans and volunteered to explore the wreck using their new underwater rover. Maritime Heritage Minnesota took the water patrol up on their offer, and video taken by the rover was instrumental in identifying the Priscilla.

“We have footage taken by the Hennepin County Water Patrol, and it’s really great,” Dr. Merriman said. “We have pictures of the Priscilla, and it’s a perfect match. We know it's her. She is in about 60 feet of water, which is a tough dive on Lake Minnetonka, so we’re so happy the water patrol volunteered to help us out.”

Echo Bay Wreck

On Sunday, divers explored a site on Echo Bay that Maritime Heritage Minnesota had previously identified as a likely undiscovered wreck.

They were right.

“It’s a shallow draft barge, and it’s metal,” Dr. Merriman said. “It has a platform on one end, and we’re not exactly sure how old it is—probably somewhere between the 1940s and 60s. It might have been sunk on purpose or it might not have. We’re not sure, but it’s undiscovered. No one knows about it.”

The barge measures about 28 feet long an 6.5 feet wide.

New Gideon Bay Wreck

Exploration of what was first thought to be a sailboat turned out to be a 16-foot rowboat somewhere underneath Gideon Bay.

Maritime Heritage Minnesota volunteers dove on the wreck over the weekend.

They were the first humans to see the boat in at least a century. 

“It’s probably been down there for 100 years or more,” Dr. Merriman said, careful not to disclose too much information on the craft's whereabouts until proper documentation had been filed with the state. “It’s one of those locally-built, really neat row boats that was probably made by one of the many local boat works.”

The row boat is about 16 feed long by 4.5 feet wide. 

Not a Trailer

In Wayzata Bay, not far from a 1955 Mercury sedan that many recreational divers have investigated over the decades, lies what was previously described as a trailer of some sort.

Exploration of the site last fall, however, revealed a motorized ice boat.

“It was a fad back between 1911 to about 1935 where they would actually put motors on ice boats—like a little airplane propeller," Dr. Merriman said. "They would put Harley Davidson motorcycle engines on these things and shoot them across the lake at 50 mph. A lot of people died.”

The Meade Yacht Company was selling build kits for the motorized ice boats back in the 1920s, and Dr. Merriman believes one of those kits may have been used to build the craft. 

"It's been thought of as a trailer all these years, but when my husband Chris went down to look at it he knew right away it was an ice boat because it had the runners on it and everything," Dr. Merriman said. 

Pile of rocks

One sonar anomaly detected last fall that Maritime Heritage Minnesota was particularly excited about was a blip that bore strong indications of being a dug out canoe—a rare and prized find for nautical archeologists.

Divers explored the site over the weekend.  

“It turned out to be a pile of rocks,” Dr. Merriman said. “We were so bummed out about that. It was not fun to find a pile of rocks. It happens.”

Crystal Bay House Boat

Maritime Heritage Minnesota knew there was a house boat somewhere at the bottom of Crystal Bay—a tipster had given a general location a few years back.

On Monday, Dr. Merriman, her husband and a volunteer found it.

"We were actually diving on an anomaly that we hoped was a ship called the Coquette that had sunk in Crystal Bay in 1885," Dr. Merriman said. "But it turns out we dove on the house boat."

Monday's discovery was aided by high visibility, which Dr. Merriman said also allowed the team to gather important data on the boat's story.

"It had a big Evenrude motor on it, and we think it might have gone in during the tornado of 1965," Dr. Merriman said. "It's torn up—it has some damage to it. Sometimes people sink boats on purpose, but you're not going to sink one with a big motor like that on it."

If the boat did sink in 1965 it cannot be added to the state's historical registry until it is 50 years old. In that case, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) would take custody of the site until 2015, at which time it would transfer to the jurisdiction of the Office of the State Archaeologist.

The Coquette, according to Dr. Merriman, could be one of the sonar anomalies under Crystal Bay not yet explored.