Join us for a dive suitable for all levels of divers. We will be diving on the wreck of St. Louis in Cape Vincent, NY. We will meet at the Cape Vincent Boat Launch and Park at 1200 Broadway St, Cape Vincent, NY 13618. We will do two guided dives on the wreck.



Launched near the end of the American Civil War, St. Louis was built and launched in Cleveland, Ohio, for the Buffalo & Detroit Transportation Company. With a single deck, she was part of a new class of steamships called “Propellers,” which replaced the side wheel as the means of propulsion for vessels.  The propeller, referred to as a screw, was driven by a single-cylinder steam engine and boiler.  A single mast was mounted just behind the pilot house.  At 203 feet, with a beam of 31 feet, she was rated at 788 tons.  She operated mainly on the upper great lakes until 1906 when she was rebuilt at Tonawanda, NY, as an unrigged barge and operated by Niagara Falls Paper Company.
 

In 1908, her ownership passed to the Atlantic Coast Steamship Company of Buffalo, NY. In February of 1914, she was abandoned as a total loss at Cape Vincent, NY, where she had been stranded next to a dock, where she remains to this day. This is just beyond where the wood pulp dock was located.

Underwater, the scuba divers can see the vessel's lowest part remains. Massive 2-foot diameter oak timbers run from bow to stern. These timbers were part of her conversion to a barge, allowing her to carry heavy loads.  Her rudder, over 12 feet long, still lays just behind the vessel.

- Thanks to Dennis McCarthy for the history of the St. Louis