Qualla: SS Carl D. Bradley

SS Carl D. Bradley: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. A common joke among the crew was that she was being held together by her rust. Sailors swept sheared rivets off the deck by the bucketful after storms, listening to the hull groan and twist in the November swells. The SS Carl D. Bradley had been the queen of the Great Lakes for 22 years, the longest and largest freighter on the inland seas, and her crew knew better than anyone that age was catching up with her. On the evening of November 18, 1958, somewhere southwest of Gull Island in northern Lake Michigan, the joke stopped being funny. The 638-foot limestone carrier broke apart in a storm and sank in minutes, killing 33 of her 35 crew members. Twenty-three of the dead came from a single town -- Rogers City, Michigan, population 3,873.

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

SS Carl D. Bradley: Queen of the Lakes

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Carl D. Bradley slid into the water at Lorain, Ohio, on April 9, 1927, built by the American Ship Building Company for the Bradley Transportation Company. She was a self-unloading freighter designed to haul limestone from Michigan Limestone's quarry at Calcite Harbor in Roger...

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

SS Carl D. Bradley: A Town on the Water

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Rogers City and the Carl D. Bradley were inseparable. The Bradley Transportation fleet drew its crews almost entirely from this small Lake Huron port town, where Michigan Limestone was the economic heartbeat. Crewmen were friends, neighbors, cousins. The boats departed and return...

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

SS Carl D. Bradley: The Night of November 18

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY 4.0. The Bradley departed Gary, Indiana, empty on November 17 at 10:00 p.m., headed for winter layup at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Then came a last-minute order from U.S. Steel: turn around and pick up one more load of stone at Calcite Harbor. Captain Roland Bryan, known as a "heavy weathe...

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | CC BY 4.0

SS Carl D. Bradley: Headlights on the Beach

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The German cargo vessel Christian Sartori witnessed the sinking through binoculars -- the bow lights going dark, then the stern, then an explosion sending a column of red, yellow, and white flame into the sky. She fought through the waves for ninety minutes to reach the site but ...

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

SS Carl D. Bradley: A Town Forever Changed

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The loss hollowed out Rogers City. Twenty-three women were widowed. Fifty-three children lost their fathers. Two wives were pregnant. Friends and relatives flooded in for the funerals, nearly doubling the town's population. A mass funeral at St. Ignatius Catholic Church laid nine...

Read more: SS Carl D. Bradley on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain