Tom Walton spent one season aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1963. And even just as a porter, he was lucky to land a competitive spot on its crew.
“It was a dream job and it was the flagship of the fleet and everybody wanted to work on the Fitz,” Walton recalled.
The admired freighter was known as the ‘Toledo Express’ because it carried iron ore from Detroit, straight down to the northwest Ohio city. Walton said its sheer size and record-breaking hauls meant everyone on the Great Lakes knew its name.
“I'd step out of the galley and wave to the folks up on the platform that they were all taking pictures and everything,” he said. “It was just truly a tourist attraction.”
But on November 10th, 1975, that pride of the Great Lakes, and its crew, would vanish in a storm.
This Monday marks 50 years since 29 men embarked on the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald’s final voyage. Many of the crew and its captain who died in the stormy waters of Lake Superior hailed from Toledo. Ohioans, like Walton, continue to honor those lost a half century ago.
A mysterious sinking
On the fateful day, it was known that there was a storm coming. But, Carrie Sowden, director of Archaeology at the National Museum of the Great Lakes, said the ship’s captain, Ernest McSorley, felt fairly confident the 700-foot-long freighter could handle it.
“The strength of the storm that showed up was a surprise to not just the Fitzgerald, but some of the other boats that were out on Lake Superior that night,” she said.
As the winds whipped up to 60 mph, the Fitzgerald checked in with a nearby freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson. McSorley told the Anderson’s crew that one of their fence rails had gone down and they had lost both of their radars.
“Some time shortly after seven o'clock, the Anderson calls over and … the first mate asks, ‘How are you doing? And Captain McSorley replies back, ‘We are holding our own,’” Sowden said.
Around 10 minutes later, the Fitzgerald disappeared off the radar.
“That's the last that was heard from them.”
A looming legacy
A few days later, on November 14th, the Fitzgerald was discovered off the coast of Ontario.
Its reputation, size and the swiftness of its disappearance were enough to forever cement the tragedy in Great Lakes History, Sowden said.
“The idea of a ship of that size being just completely overcome and lost seemed unthinkable to mariners and people in the industry … It was a huge shock.”
Then, a song by Gordon Lightfoot spread its story even farther.
In a haunting six minute ballad released less than a year after the tragedy, Lightfoot sings of the November gales that shook the ship’s crew. The song spent 21 weeks on Billboard’s Top 100 charts, hitting No. 2 just after the first anniversary of the wreck.
“It's not often you see a six-plus-minute long ballad do as well on the charts as the ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ did,” Sowden said.
Partly because of that haunting ballad, the mystery of why the ship sank has lingered. Some say it hit a shoal, others that 30-foot waves suddenly overwhelmed them.
“There was not even any time for the Fitzgerald to get off an S.O.S. for help. The end came so quickly,” said Walton, the former porter.
Remembering the lives lost
To Sowden, the shipwreck’s mysterious circumstances are not why the anniversary matters.
“The geeky historian in me is sort of like, ‘Let's learn about how boats were built, and the people who sailed on them,’ but then the person who realizes that history is about people, is like ‘Let's tell the story of these people, not the boat,’” she said.
People like Ralph Grant Walton – porter Tom Walton’s uncle. He also worked on the ship as an oiler, whose deep laughter echoed through the engine room.
Each year, Tom’s family honors his life, alongside the 28 other crew members that died that day.
“That's always sort of been my mission to make sure the men never get forgotten,” he said.
The community will join in that remembrance this weekend, as the men’s lives are honored in a 50th anniversary tribute. There, Lightfoot’s daughter, Meredith Moon, will perform the ballad that’s carried their legacy across generations.
