It was a sour and stormy night at Niagara Falls this past Halloween — so stormy , in fact , that a cargo ship was dislodge from where it had been sting for 101 class .
On August 6 , 1918 , the atomic number 26 scow — a flat - bottomed freight vessel — got detached from its tugboat and began a steady , terrifying heading toward the border of Horseshoe Falls . According toOntario ’s Niagara Parks Commission , the two crewman aboard , Gustav Lofberg and James Harris , opened the dumping doors , flooding the bottom compartments with enough water to slack the ship .
The scow soon ran into some rock , saving the men from certain death but simultaneously stranding them in the middle of the perilous upper rapid . During the ensue delivery mission , a breeches buoy — a scarf bandage attached to a pulley-block — was fastened to ropes , which a cannon bourgeon out to the scow .
Progress came to a grinding halt when the ropes got twisted , and Ontario riverman and World War I veteran William “ Red ” Hill Sr . volunteered to swim out to the buoy and untangle the line . He succeeded on his second attempt , and the two piece were pulled to refuge by the undermentioned morning .
The scow , on the other hand , spent the next century lodged among the rocks . According toUSA Today , the Halloween storm was so spartan that the ship escaped its mountainous prison house and sped downriver . It persist aground again just 150 feet from its original location .
Niagara Parks posted a video of the scow on Twitter on Friday , excuse that the bad deteriorated scow is now turn over on its side .
“ It could be stuck there for Day , or it could be adhere there for eld , ” Jim Hill , the Niagara Parks Commission ’s fourth-year handler of heritage , order in the video . “ It ’s anyone ’s guess . ”
The history of the atomic number 26 scow might not be the only thing you did n’t know about Niagara Falls ; dive into 11 more fascinating factshere .
[ h / tUSA Today ]
