Ask
those who have been around Holland for a while and you may find a few
who still remember why the stretch of lakeshore at the west end of
Lakewood Boulevard is called Alpena Beach. It’s got nothing to do
with the city in Alpena County or the old Getz Farm zoo there that
used to draw thousands of visitors in the 1930s with its exotic
animal display. No, Alpena Beach is named for a shipwreck; a lost
vessel that Great Lakes wreck sleuths consider to be among the most
sought-after discoveries the lake has yet to reveal.
Oct.
15, 1880, was a beautiful day when the Alpena left Muskegon, said
Craig Rich, author of “For Those in Peril: The Shipwrecks of Ottawa
County.”
The
Goodrich Transportation Co.’s single-stack side-wheel steamer
stopped in Grand Haven for passengers and freight before heading
southwest across the lake, top-heavy with an estimated 80 people and
10 carloads of West Michigan apples loaded on its main deck.
Capt.
Nelson W. Napier of St. Joseph steered the ship toward Chicago, away
from the lakeshore that had become known as the city’s playground.
All
was well by 1 a.m. according to captains who saw the Alpena in
transit, Rich said. But the barometer pressure was dropping and the
“worst gale in recorded history” soon swept across the lake,
turning an idyllic weekend trip into a disaster in a matter of hours.
The
Alpena was spotted by other captains at 6, 7 and 8 a.m., “laboring
mightily” in the high seas about 35 miles off Kenosha, Wis. A large
oil on canvas imagining of this hangs in the Holland Museum.
She
was spotted again later, lying on her side with one large,
distinctive paddlewheel facing the sky. Some say she swamped and
sank. Some say she drifted the rest of Saturday and perhaps until
Sunday morning.
“I
don’t know if her wheel was still turning, but I like to think of
it that way,” Rich said.
Over
the next couple days, pieces of the upper decking and debris from the
wooden-built steamer began to wash upon on the beaches between
Holland and Saugatuck. Bodies also began to wash up.
Newspapers
reported thousands of apples were found bobbing in the surf. The
largest debris to beach in the area was the ship’s grand piano, the
fat brown leg of which survives in the museum. “Weird melodies”
emitted from the instrument strings, according to the museum exhibit.
Because
the only manifest was onboard, there is no exact accounting for the
lives lost. Reports estimate approximately 80. Newspaper records show
crew estimates around 26, Rich said.
The
editor of the Grand Haven Herald, W.S. Benham, and his wife, perished
in the sinking. Other passengers hailed from Grand Rapids, Grand
Haven, Chicago and as far away as New Mexico and Philadelphia. An
inquest found Goodrich in contempt following the sinking.
As
for the beach, it wasn’t the only thing to be named after the
disaster. The storm itself became known as the “Alpena Storm.”
And Lakewood Boulevard was once called “Alpena Beach Road.”
The
beach may not have formally received its informal name until 29 years
later, when the ship’s side-wheeled nameboard washed ashore north
of Tunnel Park in 1909.
Rich,
a member of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, is optimistic
the wreck will someday be found and identified by the engine type and
paddle wheels.
The
problem, he said, is that “we don’t know where to even start
looking.” The ship is thought to be mid-lake somewhere between
Holland and Racine, Wis. — a potentially huge search grid.
“
That’s
why it’s such a mystery.”