I have a story today in The Detroit News about a shipwreck. (It’s still shipwreck season!) The ship, the M.V. Montrose, sank in the Detroit River in the summer of 1962 after colliding with a cement barge. It was an enormous news event for most of that year! The wreck was visible from the shore, and thousands of people came to see it all summer. In the fall, after a huge salvage operation, it was refloated and sent on its way, “slimy, rust-covered and battered — but riding high on an even keel,” as Detroit News marine reporter Stoddard White wrote.
Spectators come to see the wreck of the Montrose in the Detroit River, July 1962. Detroit News photo archive.
I love this shipwreck story because it is not grim. No one died. This was pure spectacle! It was about as fun as a shipwreck can be. Does it offer us any lessons today? Does it have any resonating contemporary themes? Maybe in the hands of a more talented writer, it does, but in my opinion, not really! Who cares! We all need to just enjoy life and experience wonder sometimes.
The story is paywalled, but the paper is running a $1 for six months deal right now that will also give you access to, for example, this giant five-part series about climate change and the Great Lakes with a ton of amazing underwater(!) photography. Or this excellent history and future of Campus Martius at 20 years old! The entire Francis X. Donnelly catalog? Yours for just 20 cents a month until May.
OK, end of local news sales pitch. Two fun facts about the Montrose from the cutting room floor:
The altar of St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in Dearborn, which was dedicated in October that year, was supposed to sail from Italy to Detroit aboard the Montrose. It missed the boat by 30 minutes. (Much interesting history about this congregation here!)
And, in 1964, two people were found guilty of stealing $4,500 worth of cargo salvaged from the Montrose that had been in storage at the Detroit Harbor Terminal (RIP) warehouse, including “marble slabs, copper and brass fittings, and a marble statue of St. Theresa.” How many more marble devotionals were on this ship?!
Hope you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. I plan to be back later this week with a deeply researched and long-ass edition of the Little Detroit History Letter, just in time for reading on your phone while bored at a relative’s house on Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!!!
xo
aeb