New photos show a 129-year-old shipwreck in Lake Huron that left 5 dead after the sinking vessel dragged its own lifeboat into the depths

• Researchers have discovered the site of a long-lost shipwreck in the depths of Lake Huron.
• The Ironton and its lifeboat went down in September 1894 after a collision with another ship.

Nearly five years after discovering the site of a long-lost shipwreck at the bottom of Lake Huron, maritime researchers announced this month that the mystery of the sunken Ironton, a 190-foot cargo vessel that went down amid blustery winds in 1894, has finally been laid to rest.

Divers and experts alike had long sought evidence of the demise of the Ironton, a 19th-century shipwreck that killed five crew members and left only two survivors after sinking near Thunder Bay on Lake Huron, a notoriously perilous waterway known as "shipwreck alley."

Researchers with the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration, the state of Michigan, and Ocean Exploration Trust finally uncovered the near-perfectly intact shipwreck hundreds of feet below Lake Huron's surface in 2019, preserved in full thanks to cold freshwater running through the Great Lakes, according to The Associated Press, which was first to report the story.

Despite discovering the wreckage in 2019, the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries waited until this week to announce the update, telling the AP they kept the discovery a secret to ward off divers who might disturb the site before officials were done gathering photographic and video evidence. The agency plans to announce the site of the wreck in the coming months, the outlet reported.

Surviving witnesses described in 1894 how the large steamer towing the Ironton on that fateful September night collided with a grain hauler and was forced to sever ties with the barge to avoid entanglement and further collision, leaving the Ironton and its seven crew members alone and adrift in the cold and dark, the National Marine Sanctuaries said in a Wednesday news release.

As it became evident the ship would sink, the Ironton's captain and six sailors climbed aboard a lifeboat. But amid their panic, nobody remembered to untie the lifeboat from the vessel, and the crew members were pulled down alongside the ship, surviving sailors told a local newspaper at the time, according to NOAA.

Photos of the Ironton's wreck on the bottom of Huron's lake bed show the small lifeboat still tied to the vessel, confirming the century-old story.

"Archaeologists study things to learn about the past. But it's not really things that we're studying; it's people," Jeff Gray, superintendent at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary told the AP. "And that lifeboat ... really connects you to the site and reminds you of how powerful the lakes are and what it must have been like to work on them and lose people on them."

As the Ironton and its lifeboat descended, two sailors grabbed onto floating bags and boxes in the water and were ultimately rescued by a passing steamer, according to NOAA.

Three masts on the Ironton are still standing, even after 130 years on the bottom of the lake, photos show. No human remains were found among the wreckage, the AP reported.

Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and its partners first set out to find the Ironton in 2017 during an expedition wherein researchers were tasked with mapping 100 square miles of lake bed. During this project, the organization discovered the wreck of the Ohio, the steamer with which the Ironton collided that night, but the schooner barge continued to evade them.

It was two years later, in the final days of another expedition, that researchers with the sanctuary finally found the lost ship by using an autonomous surface vehicle, according to NOAA.

Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary plans to anchor a buoy to the site of the wreck in the coming months so divers can explore the wreck, according to the AP.