In summer 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially designated 962 square miles of Lake Michigan off the coast of Ozaukee, Sheboygan, and Manitowoc counties as the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. This area contains 36 known wrecks (21 with images are shown on the map below) plus at least another 59 wrecks awaiting discovery! Click images in each pop-up window for more info on each sunken vessel curated by the Wisconsin Historical Society on their Wisconsin Shipwrecks website.

We invite you to explore the web map below and through the Milwaukee Community Map in Google Earth, where you can also discover other Deeper Dive interactive maps.

Special thanks to Kara O’Keefe, Tamara Thomsen, Russ Green, Bill Moren, Tom Xiong, and Eric Pogemann. Vessel locations based on coordinates provided by Wisconsin Historical Society in 2021. Map not for navigational purposes.

Learn more about NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries and Wisconsin Historical Society’s wonderful online archive of Wisconsin Shipwrecks.