11/11/2025
Winter weather was much on our minds at the 1833 lighthouse today, not because of the snow on the ground but because it was the 50th anniversary of the loss of the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in a November gale on Lake Superior.
We were proud to host an Erie County Historical Society ceremony organized by chairman Rich Pyszczek on a very cold afternoon. Keeper Mike Vogel tolled the fog bell 29 times for each sailor lost in the sinking of the Fitz on Nov. 10, 1975, plus one more time for all the sailors lost through time on the Lakes' estimated 6,000 shipwrecks. There were remarks by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and others, and the names were read by County Historian Doug Kohler, City Historian Lindsey Lauren Visser, Buffalo Maritime Center president Anne Conable, and Jack Messmer and Mike Casillo of the Buffalo Harbor Museum.
Vogel also commemorated the loss, on the same date of Nov. 10, of the Buffalo lightship, L.V. 82, in the "White Hurricane" of 1913. Six sailors died trying to keep the lightship on station in 90 mph gusts, 40-foot waves and whiteout snow squalls. Only one body was ever recovered.
Today, we remembered.
