Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald 50 years after it sunk in Lake Superior November 10, 2025

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PBS did a documentary on the Edmund Fitzgerald. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

SHORTLY BEFORE 8 THIS MORNING, I listened to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot pulse from my radio. It was an auditory reminder that today marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of that freightliner on November 10, 1975, in Lake Superior some 17 miles from Whitefish Point, Michigan.

Some 26,000 tons of taconite pellets, like these, filled the cargo holds of The Edmund Fitzgerald as it journeyed across Lake Superior on November 9 and 10, 1975. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

This shipwreck holds great interest in Minnesota as the Edmund typically left loaded with taconite from Silver Bay, on the Minnesota side of Lake Superior, headed for the steel mills of Detroit and Toledo. But on this last fateful trip, the Edmund departed from Superior, Wisconsin, aiming for Detroit.

My husband’s copy of Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hits, which includes “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

The ship sank in the gale force raging winds and waves of a November storm claiming the lives of all twenty-nine aboard. That tragedy has been forever immortalized in Lightfoot’s 1976 ballad.

Today, in ceremonies both in Minnesota and Michigan, those who perished in this disaster on an inland “sea” will be honored. At 2 pm, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan, holds a public remembrance service. At 7 pm, a memorial service is set, but for Fitzgerald family members only with the museum closing at 5 pm in preparation for that event.

Here in Minnesota, the 50th anniversary focus today happens at the Split Rock Lighthouse Historic Site located along the shore of Lake Superior southwest of Silver Bay, which is north of Duluth and Superior. The Annual Memorial Beacon Lighting ceremony, beginning at 4 pm, is sold out.

For those able to secure tickets, the Minnesota ceremony is sure to be emotional as the names of the twenty-nine crew members are read aloud to the tolling of a ship’s bell. Lighting of the lighthouse beacon follows with the light shining for two hours.

Many years have passed since I’ve visited the lighthouse. Decades have passed since I first heard Gordon Lightfoot’s ode to the Edmund Fitzgerald as a young adult. Despite the passage of time, this tragic story remains imprinted on my mind, as it does the collective memories of Minnesotans old enough to remember this November 10, 1975, tragedy on Lake Superior.

FYI: I’ve previously written about the Edmund Fitzgerald. That includes a 2014 blog post about a presentation at the Rice County Historical Society by a diver who explored the wreck of the freightliner. Click here to read that story. The presentation coincided with the opening of the play, “Ten November,” at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault. Click here to read an introspective piece I also wrote.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Marking 50 years of sharing rural history at August 29-31 tractor show August 29, 2025

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Of the hundreds of photos I’ve taken at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines spring and fall shows, this remains a favorite of a farmer watching threshing. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2012)

FOR ANYONE ROOTED in the land, this weekend’s annual Tractor Show at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines showgrounds along Minnesota State Highway 3 south of Dundas is a must-attend. This event, celebrating its 50th year, is like a step back in time, when farming was much more labor intensive and equipment vastly different from the computerized equipment of today.

A mammoth threshing machine sits outside the fenced showgrounds on Wednesday. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)

I’ve attended and photographed this show many times. And even though I’m not nearly as interested as my automotive machinist husband in old tractors, steam engines, threshing machines, small engines and miscellaneous vintage farm equipment, I still find plenty to appreciate. I am, after all, a born and raised farm girl who is incredibly proud of her rural heritage.

I’m also proud of Randy and all the work he’s done on vintage tractors. Without fail, someone will walk up to us at the show and tell him how great their tractor runs—the one he worked on. He’s overhauled many a tractor engine.

There’s a lot of work involved in putting on a tractor show that includes a daily noon tractor parade, a tractor pull, a kids’ pedal pull, flea market, living history demonstrations, petting zoo, mini train rides, food stands, live music, a cornhole tournament, raffle, Sunday morning church service, small engines and tractor displays, and much more.

Signage at the showgrounds entry notes this as the 50th anniversary Tractor Show. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)

And to think that volunteers have organized this Tractor Show for 50 years is truly remarkable. Enthusiasm for showcasing rural history and preserving the past runs deep. Old buildings have even been moved on site like a log cabin, 1912 farmhouse, an old school, town hall, corn crib…

The flea market always draws me to look and shop. I challenge myself to find the strangest of merchandise. Not hard to do. Oddities abound.

This name was printed on one of the two threshing machines I photographed, presumably the original owners. Other names were penciled onto the metal. Another sign identified this as a Huber threshing machine. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)

And then there are the people. I always run into someone I know. And that’s part of the experience, too. Standing and visiting. Catching up. Discussing whatever.

This all happens on the land, on acreage Rice County Steam & Gas Engines, Inc. opens twice annually to the public. The group holds a spring swap meet on Memorial Day weekend.

Two threshing machines sat outside the showgrounds fence at the entrance gate Wednesday afternoon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)

But for Labor Day weekend, the event focuses on tractors. Gates open at 7 a.m. daily, August 29-31. Admission for all three days is $10 for adults; those 12 and under enter free. I’d encourage you to attend if you live within driving distance. And that means anyone, whether you were raised rural or grew up in a city.

FYI: Click here to learn more about the RCSGE Tractor Show and for a listing of events.

TELL ME: Have you attended this event or a similar one?

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

7:04 PM, June 13, 1968, Tracy, Minnesota June 13, 2018

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ELLEN HANEY. Mildred Harnden, Barbara Holbrook. Ellen Morgan. Fred Pilatus. Paul Swanson. Walter Swanson. Nancy Viahos. Otelia Werner.

They ranged in age from two to 84. The same age as my granddaughter and just a few years younger than my mom.

On this evening 50 years ago, the nine died in an F-5 tornado that ravaged the rural farming community of Tracy in my native southwestern Minnesota.

At 7:04 p.m. today, church bells will ring in Tracy, marking the precise time the twister, with wind speeds surpassing 300 mph, roared into town killing those nine residents, injuring 125 and desecrating the landscape.

 

A residential street, once covered in branches and debris, had to be plowed to allow vehicles to pass. Photo by The Tracy Headlight Herald and courtesy of Scott Thoma, Tracy native and author of Out of the Blue, a book about the Tracy tornado.

 

All these decades later, the visual memories of that devastation still flash before my eyes in twisted, broken trees and piles of jumbled lumber, once homes. I was an impressionable almost 12-year-old when my dad drove our family 25 miles southwest from our farm to Tracy just days after the storm. You don’t forget a scene like that—such utter and chaotic destruction that a place no longer resembles a town. For that reason I’ve always feared and respected tornadoes.

I’ve written many times about the Tracy tornado. I’d encourage you to read those posts by clicking here.

 

Some of the injured at the Tracy Hospital. Photo by The Tracy Headlight Herald and courtesy of Scott Thoma.

 

Tracy residents, current and former, remain committed to honoring the memories of those who died in the June 13, 1968, tornado. Last weekend the town held events to commemorate the 50th anniversary. That included tolling of the Lutheran church bell and the release of nine black balloons. A noted Twin Cities meteorologist and storm chaser came to town as did Scott Thoma, hometown boy who authored a book, Out of the Blue, about the tornado. Locals shared tornado stories in words and in photos posted on a memory wall. A Tornado Tree Memorial has long been in place. Selected 2018-2019 Tracy area high school graduates will receive scholarships given in the names of those who died. Monies from the sale of “Never Forget” t-shirts are funding those financial gifts.

Never Forget. Those two words have themed this 50th anniversary remembrance.

 

Surveying the destruction at Tracy Elementary School, which was destroyed. Photo by The Tracy Headlight Herald and courtesy of Scott Thoma.

 

Down in Nashville, Tracy native and award-winning songwriter Dennis Morgan, penned, performed and recorded a song, “The Ballad of the Tracy Tornado, 50 Years Later.” Morgan was just 15 and cleaning a calf pen when he and his family spotted the twister from their farm west of town. They raced to get their father from a field where he was cultivating corn before sheltering in a neighbor’s basement. Morgan sent 300 copies of his ballad CD to his hometown with all sale proceeds designated for the Tracy Fire Department and Ambulance Service.

 

Eric Lantz, 16, of Walnut Grove, shot this award-winning photo of the Tracy tornado as it was leaving town. He often took photos for the Walnut Grove Tribune, owned by his uncle, Everett Lantz. This image by Eric was awarded third place in the 1968 National Newspaper Association contest for best news photo. This copyrighted photo is courtesy of Scott Thoma with the original copyright retained by Eric Lantz.

 

While researching this post, I also noted an iconic, award-winning tornado photo on the City of Tracy website. The image was taken by then 16-year-old Eric Lantz for the Walnut Grove Tribune. Today that photo takes me back to this small town on the prairie as, at 7:04 pm 50 years later, I schedule this post to publish. I shall never forget…

 

© Text copyright of Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Images copyrighted as noted.