OREGON, Ohio — The high winds with gusts of up to 60 mph that hit the region beginning Friday night were strong enough to push water east, away from the Toledo end of the lake. Over the weekend, local residents observed shallow water around the Toledo region and the islands in the western portion of the lake.
Photos circulating social media Sunday and Monday showed what appear to be a long-lost structure stuck at the bottom of Lake Erie, revealed when the storm pushed water from the lake's western basin out east.
Many speculated these photos, which were said to have been taken near the James A. Haley Boardwalk in Oregon, Ohio, depicted a long-forgotten shipwreck.
The ruins also had some cylindrical structures inside, which some thought looked like cannons, while others said on social media they appeared to be a propulsion system of some kind.
National Museum of the Great Lakes Director of Archaeology and Research Carrie Sowden, who was searching for the site Monday morning, said the structure did not appear to have overwhelming characteristics of a ship.
"From the photos I looked at last night, and there were just a couple, I saw a lot of straight lines [on the structure], which to me says more pier/dockage than ship," said Sowden. "But that doesn't mean it isn't a ship, it just means that's my first impression."
She also said the cylindrical object was definitely not a ship cannon.
Sowden said she wanted to examine the remains herself, but by Monday morning, water had moved back into parts of the lake's western basin. At the location where the structure was supposedly photographed, all that remained was a sheet of ice, following several days of bitterly cold conditions.
But Sowden said if a major windstorm were to arrive during fairer weather, she and a team could return to the location and do additional research.
"I'd bring a couple of people with me and some measuring tapes, and try and get a better understanding of what's there and what's exposed," she said. "Photographs can warp things, and maybe there are curves, maybe it is a boat."
Although the structure may not be a long-forgotten ship, the discovery would still prove historically interesting to the Toledo area either way, Sowden explained.
"Even if it's just a pier, it appears to be a lost, unknown remnant of something people in this area don't necessarily remember. So there's still research and history to be dug up about it," she said.
Lake Erie is the most shallow of the Great Lakes and contains the wreckage from many ships. Shipwreck hunters uncover newly discovered wrecks fairly regularly, often with the help of the Toledo-based National Museum of the Great Lakes.
In 2018, the museum worked with Cleveland Underwater Explorers to find the wreckage of the Margaret Olwill, a steam barge that sank off Lorain in 1899.
Also in 2018, researchers announced they'd found the remains of a schooner that went down off the coast of Kelleys Island nearly 200 years earlier. Experts believed the wreckage was that of a sailing ship called The Lake Serpent.
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