
The Maine lake full of sunken steamboats
Steamboats were once a glamorous means of transport for tourists summering at Moosehead Lake – but when the era faded, ship owners sank the once-beloved vessels.

"A hundred years ago there were dozens of these things cruising around here," said a man . . . . "What happened to the rest of them?" I asked.
He pointed down to the murky water. Apparently, many are sitting at the bottom.
From roughly the 1830s to the 1930s, when the steamboats were in operation, this lake and surrounding woods in northern Maine were as popular for American tourists as a visit to the Hamptons or Cape Cod today.
Between the 1940s and '70s, the steamboats indeed met their end. Some vessels were salvaged for parts and one was accidentally wrecked, but many were scuttled in Moosehead Lake when owners realised they were consuming more time, space and money than they were worth.
