The Eerily Fascinating Mystery Behind The Spooky Abandoned Ghost Ship In Wisconsin
Finding a ship in Prairie du Chien isn’t all that odd, all things considered. The town of about 6,000 sits just north of the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, along the state’s western edge about 55 miles north of the state line. Wisconsin’s second-oldest city, it is strategically located as a gateway between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. So no, boats and ships aren’t rare here – folks have been traveling the waterways here for centuries. But that still doesn’t help explain why a tugboat that sunk in Fort Madison, Iowa – more than 200 miles south of here – sits in a field near a golf course.
Prairie du Chien has a long history tied to all the water surrounding it, but there doesn't seem to be anyone that can explain how this old Wisconsin town came to be home to a tugboat that sunk in 1985 and now sits "on the hard" and abandoned.
This ship is the L. Wade Childress, a 176 foot boat used as a push boat on the Mississippi River. It was tied up for the winter and got beat by a particularly brutal season of being battered by ice chunks. The boat eventually sank on December 12, 1985 and was raised on March 25, 1986.
It was an early freeze in 1985, according to a Chicago Tribune article that mentions the sinking of the L. Wade Childress. A site called TowboatGallery says the boat was then converted to a quarterboat. But that's about the end of the information available about this abandoned ship. It was built in 1948 and there's a persistent rumor that the plan was to turn this ship into a unique bed and breakfast. But by whom and what happened? That's the big question.
This ship draws urban explorers, who say the lack of a No Trespassing sign means it's able to be explored. The ship is a shell of its former self, with nothing but empty rooms that are rusted and rotting. Most everything inside is untouched from when it sank. The stove is still there, the bathrooms, even a fuse box.
There's something super eerie about the view from the upper captain's area. It's definitely not difficult to squint a bit and imagine what this tugboat once was, spending 40 years moving up and down the Mississippi River.
Now, it's a ghost ship with no story. It's marooned on land just outside of town, on a country road, near a golf course and in view of the water, but never to sail again. It's a vestige of the past, a relic of a different time and a thoroughly out-of-place ghost ship.
