Big Iron

The Edmund Fitzgerald's Career in the Taconite Industry and its Economic Impact on the Great Lakes

Leo Bozek

Port2Port - 2024

On the evening of November 9th, 1975, a fierce fall storm loomed over Lake Superior. On that night, a large cargo freighter known as the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald tragically fell victim to that storm and sank.1 The ship was famously memorialized in Canadian Folk-Singer Gordon Lightfoot's song The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald, which details the events leading up to the wreck and the Great Lakes legend it became.2 However, before the tragedy of the Edmund Fitzgerald, there was its monumental conception and career shipping taconite - unrefined pellets of iron ore - across the Great Lakes.

Figure 1: The Edmund Fitzgerald departing the Duluth-Superior Harbour in 1958.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was built by Great Lakes Engineering Works for the company Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and set sail in 1958. Between her initial launch in 1958 and until 1971, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, weighing 13,632 tons and measuring 729 feet wide.3 Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance built the ship due to its large investments in mining and shipping in the Great Lakes region.4 The ship's primary load was taconite, which it would haul from ports in the Superior-Duluth area in the state of Minnesota.5 Through its shipping of taconite between 1958 and 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald participated in an industry that began to boom in the mid-1950s, particularly in the Superior-Duluth area, where the ship would load its cargo.6 As shown in Figure 1, the Edmund Fitzgerald's large size was significant, as it allowed allow the ship to carry more taconite with each trip.7 Thus, due to its size and capacity, the ship was more efficient in hauling taconite from Superior-Duluth to steel mills on Lake Superior and across the Great Lakes.

The ship would have been a major contributor to the shipping industry and, by extension, the taconite industry. The taconite industry on the coasts of Lake Superior was a critical resource and export that was very profitable for the area, as in 1955, 80% of the total production of taconite in the United States came from off the coast of Lake Superior.8 The boom in industry in the Superior-Duluth area relating to taconite ore heavily impacted the shipping and exporting industry, as the Superior-Duluth seaport handled a total volume of 37 million tons of both ore and grain in 1967. The boom largely contributed to the high volume, making the seaport one of the top 5 in America in 1967 in terms of volume handled.9 The Edmund Fitzgerald would load 26,000 tons of taconite, a record-breaking cargo load, on the Great Lakes from the Superior-Duluth seaport and transport it across Lake Superior to steel mills around Detroit and Toledo. 10

The Edmund Fitzgeralds\' career as an ore freighter took place during a period of technological and economic advancement in taconite shipping in Lake Superior and amongst the Great Lakes. In 1969, the seaside city of Superior-Duluth was experiencing the financial benefit that the shipping and taconite industry had provided during the boom as the city's tourist and convention business doubled. The rising industries created more jobs, leading to more urban development in the city.11 The Edmund Fitzgerald's career of transporting taconite from Superior-Duluth across Lake Superior and the Great Lakes demonstrated a fascinating history behind this ship outside of its untimely demise. The ship\'s history and relationship with the taconite industry and the transport of cargo provided a glimpse into the booming coastal economies off the coast of Lake Superior and a brief snapshot of the Edmund Fitzgerald during its life at sea.


  1. Thomas Hultquist, Michael Dutter, and David Schwab "Reexamination of the 9--10 November 1975 'Edmund Fitzgerald' Storm Using Today's Technology." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Vol. 86, 5, 607. 

  2. Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald." Song, 1976. 

  3. "About the Ship Edmund Fitzgerald" Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, 2023. 

  4. Gregory DiLisi, and Richard Rarick, "Remembering The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald." American Association of Physics Teachers, Vol. 53, 9, 521. 

  5. Jacqueline Justice, "Classical Tragedy and The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald." The Journal of American Culture Vol. 36, 2, 93. 

  6. "Taconite Boom Generates Minnesota P&L Growth", 34. 

  7. University of Wisconsin-Madison Library, The Edmund Fitzgerald departing the Duluth-Superior Harbour. Photograph. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1958. 

  8. Thomas Durrance, "Boom in Taconite: The Steel Industry Taps a Big New Source of Iron Ore." Barron\'s National Business and Financial Weekly, Vol. 35, 16. 

  9. Ibid. 

  10. Jacqueline Justice, "Classical Tragedy and The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald." The Journal of American Culture Vol. 36, 2, 92-93; and "About the Ship Edmund Fitzgerald" Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, 2023. 

  11. "Taconite Boom Generates Minnesota P&L Growth", 34.