"As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most"-Gordon Lightfoot, 1976
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was constructed to be the biggest and best ore carrier the Great Lakes had ever seen. She was commissioned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and constructed by Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan. Her keel was laid on August 7, 1957 as Hull #301. She was launched on June 8, 1958, and was 729 feet long, 75 feet wide, and weighed 13,632 gross tons. These impressive numbers earned her the title of “Queen of the Lakes”, an affectionate name for the largest vessel on the Great Lakes, which she held until 1971.
"FITZGERALD was a conventional "straight decker" Great Lakes ore carrier. The vessel was arranged with cargo holds in the center of the ship, and ballast tanks outboard of and below the holds. There was a forward deckhouse containing accommodations and the pilothouse and an after deckhouse above the engineroom with accommodations and messing facilities...Cargo was loaded and discharged through twenty-one cargo hatch openings, each eleven feet longitudinally and forty-eight feet transversely" - U.S Coast Guard Marine Casualty Report No. USCG 16732/64216
The massive ore carrier was named after the President of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance. The Fitzgerald was chartered to the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Company, based in Cleveland, Ohio. She was designed to the maximum size a ship could be in order to safely navigate the Soo Locks, yet she was also built for her speed, a combo that allowed her to quickly become Oglebay Norton’s flagship.