Marinette, Marinette County WI. – The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Sidney O. Neff shipwreck in the National Register of Historic Places. The Sidney O. Neff lies submerged in Green Bay about one-third of a mile southwest of the entrance to Marinette Harbor.
Sidney O. Neff was launched in November of 1890 from the Burger & Burger shipyard in Manitowoc and was converted into a single screw steambarge in Milwaukee in 1898. The vessel operated in the Great Lakes lumber trade throughout its career. In April 1934, the vessel sat at harbor in Marinette and was later deemed to be unseaworthy. In 1939 its machinery was salvaged, and the vessel was towed outside of the harbor and abandoned in 10 feet of water. Today, the vessel sits upright and broken on the lake bottom with many of its hull components extant. As an early converted wooden steambarge, Sidney O. Neff provides historians and archaeologists the rare chance to study early converted wooden steambarge construction and the Great Lakes lumber trade.
The National Register is the official list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.
Additional information for the Sidney O. Neff is available at
To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit https://wisconsinhistory.org/hp/register/
