STURGEON BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The discovery team that worked tirelessly to locate a historic shipwreck off the coast of Baileys Harbor highlighted the mission on Wednesday morning at the Door County Maritime Museum.
The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association (WUAA) announced the discovery of the ship officially on September 15, 2025, 139 years to the date that the schooner F.J. King wrecked and sank.
According to the Associated Press, the ship was discovered in June by a team led by researcher Brendon Baillod. On Wednesday, the WUAA provided 3D virtual reality (VR) tours of the wreck with an Oculus VR headset.
Baillod led the project as its principal investigator, working with 20 citizen scientists and community historians from around the Midwest. As a crew, they directly helped to locate the shipwreck.
The WUAA helped lead the mission with a tour vessel to help guide the full mission to find the ship, which had been a major project to find since at least the 1970s.
While it had been a long shot to the WUAA, two hours into the search and on the second pass, an object matching the F.J. King’s length was shown on a sonar sidescan. The 144-foot three-masted schooner was comprised of wood and built in 1867 in Toledo, Ohio.
Baillod emphasized the importance of the Maritime Museum and how critical it is to find ships like these, teaching people about the historical impact of the Great Lakes.
“After the Civil War, the reason we became a world superpower is that we had this natural freshwater highway connecting all our raw materials with our cities,” Baillod said. “The Great Lakes are a major reason we became an industrial superpower.”
Baillod also emphasized that these shipwrecks are a huge pathway to reconnecting people with that heritage and that it’s an excellent medium to do so. He added that for years, shipwrecks had been looted, until they became archaeological sites.
“For many years, these shipwrecks were kind of looted for souvenirs,” Baillod said. “In 1987, it became illegal to take things from them; they all became archaeological sites with a few exceptions. We’re trying to educate people about preserving them and studying them to learn what we can.”
Click here to learn more about the F.J. King and other WUAA missions.
