On March 25th, 1921, the US Navy ocean-going tug, USS Conestoga, with a coal barge in tow, steamed out of Mare Island, California, bound for Tutuila, American Samoa, by way of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The tug, barge and crew disappeared. For three months that summer, the Navy would launch the largest sea-and-air search to in its history looking for the tug and its crew of 56. Aircraft and destroyers searched more than 300,000 square miles of sea around Hawaii. The only trace of the tug found in the search was a lifeboat bearing the initial letter of her name found near Manzanillo, Mexico.  Yesterday, NOAA announced that the wreckage of the tug has been found, but nowhere near Hawaiian waters. The wreck was located in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, a few miles from Southeast Farallon Island, about 30 miles from the mouth of San Francisco Bay, off the California coast.

USS Conestoga was a 170 ft long, steel tug built for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co in 1904. For its first dozen years, the tug hauled coal along the United States East Coast before being sold to the Navy in 1907.  The tug was powered by two boilers which developed 1,000 hp. The tug operated at 13 knots and carried one 3″ gun.

The wreck of the Conestoga was located in 2009 but remained unidentified.  In October 2015, a joint NOAA and Navy mission confirmed the wreck was theConestoga and on March 23, 2016, 95 years after the ship was lost, a formal announcement was made.

USS Conestoga finally found after 95 years

Thanks to Phil Leon, David Rye, Irwin Bryan and Miroslav Antic for contributing to this post.