Mick Hartley

April 28, 1909. Wyandotte, Michigan. "Launching party, steamer Benj. Noble." Before and after.

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

The Benjamin Noble sank exactly five years later:

Top-heavy with a cargo of steel rails, the Benjamin Noble capsized in a squall 20 miles out from Duluth on April 28, 1914, vanishing into Lake Superior with the loss of all hands. After 90 years as a "ghost ship," its wreck was discovered at a depth of 400 feet off Knife Island in 2004, the front half buried in 40 feet of mud — "heavily overloaded, just a submarine waiting to happen."