BATON ROUGE (AP) — A shipwreck has emerged along the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as water levels plummet — threatening to reach record highs in some areas.
The ship, which archaeologists believe was a ferry that sank in the late 1800s to early 1900s, was spotted by a Baton Rouge resident walking along the shoreline earlier this month. The discovery is the last to surface due to the ebbing waters caused by the drought. Over the summer, receding waters at Lake Mead National Recreation Area revealed multiple skeletal remains, countless dried fish, a graveyard of forgotten boats and even a sunken World War II craft that once walked the lake.
“Eventually the river will rise and (the ship) will go back underwater,” said Chip McGimsey, the Louisiana state archaeologist who has been inspecting the wreckage for the past two weeks. “That’s part of the reason we made the big effort to document it this time, because it might not be there next time.”
McGimsey thinks the vessel could be the Brookhill Ferry, which likely carried people and horse-drawn wagons across the river – before major bridges crossed the mighty Mississippi. Newspaper records indicate that the ship sank in 1915 during a major storm.
But this is not the first time that low water levels have revealed the vessel. McGimsey said tiny parts of the ship were put on display in the 1990s.
“At that time the ship was completely filled with mud and there was mud all around, so only the tops of the sides were visible, so (the archaeologists) really didn’t see much else. They had to move a lot of dirt just to have narrow windows to see pieces,” McGimsey said.
Today, a third of the boat, measuring 95 feet (29 meters) long, is visible on the muddy shore near downtown Baton Rouge.
McGimsey expects more discoveries as water levels continue to drop, having already received calls about two other possible shipwrecks.
But unusually low water in the lower Mississippi, where rainfall has been below normal since late August, has also led to chaos – causing barges to become stuck in mud and sand, leading to restrictions on Coast Guard waterways and disrupting river transportation for shippers, boaters and cruise ship passengers.
In Baton Rouge, the river lies about 5 feet deep, according to the National Weather Service — its lowest level since 2012.
Water levels are expected to drop further in the coming weeks, dampening economic activity in the region and potentially threatening jobs.
Sara Cline, l’Associated Press