Smithsonian Magazine | Sean Kingsley – History Correspondent | JANUARY 20, 2023 | READ MORE HERE Once a Floating Speakeasy, This Shipwreck Tells a Tale of Bullets and Booze

The Keuka sank on Lake Charlevoix in August 1932. The wreck of the Keuka is still largely intact and upright in Lake Charlevoix. © Chris Roxburgh

FLORENCE LELAND GARDNER – Belvedere Book #1

One day a large barge appeared in Lake Charlevoix and anchored out from Belvedere pier. It had been a dance boat. So Johnnie Knight decided to give a party on it. All the young crowd on the Belvedere were invited and we went to town where cruisers were engaged to transport everyone out to the boat. It was a very elaborate party with a fine orchestra, and was a great success. Every one returned safely in the early hours of the morning after the thrilling and unique party. The next morning the dance boat sank and is still there at the bottom of the lake.

Memoirs of Members 1878-1968 | THE BELVEDERE CLUB CHARLEVOIX MICHIGAN – Copyright 1969

ELEANOR SIMPSON ORR – Belvedere Book #1

This was the Johnnie Knight era—As he said, “Nothing Beats Fun!” and that was about the way it was. Up north about every other night in his speed boat—never worrying about those dear little children at home. We would just “catch another dawn.” Finally his birthday party on that boat, the Keuka, in Pine Lake. He knew it was about to sink but no one was allowed off until five a.m. It did sink the next day.

MEMOIRS OF MEMBERS 1878-1968 | THE BELVEDERE CLUB CHARLEVOIX MICHIGAN – COPYRIGHT 1969

EXCERPTS:

To satisfy their thirst, some Americans made gin in their bathtubs. Others obtained prescriptions that allowed them to legally acquire liquor. And, in the backwaters of Michigan’s Lake Charlevoix, Captain James Gallagher, president of the Wolverine Steamship Company, turned a leaky old lumber barge, the Keuka, into a floating speakeasy.

“The Keuka represented the drinking and gambling habits of the residents of the area: shopkeepers, laborers, merchants and the common people, as opposed to the upscale casinos” frequented by wealthy out-of-towners who spent their summers at the region’s resorts, says Wiles. “The Keuka was unique, a one and only.”

Chris Roxburgh, an underwater photographer and author based south of Lake Charlevoix in Traverse City, began 2023 with a visit to the wreck of the Keuka. He got his first taste of boating within two weeks of being born and started freediving at age 5. The second day of January presented the perfect opportunity for him to explore the vessel, which sank in 1932 and is now a popular destination for divers.

“Usually you have to worry in winter dives about big floating ice,” says Roxburgh, “… the same ice that caused many of the 6,000 wrecks in the Great Lakes. But it’s been a very warm winter, like most of the world, so Lake Charlevoix was not iced over.” Under more typical winter conditions, divers would’ve had to cut a hole through 16 inches of ice to reach the Keuka.

Partying under the radar

The speakeasy’s ruse involved picking up passengers at the Mason Street dock in Charlevoix and ferrying them out to the middle of the lake. There, the Keuka opened up its gaming tables and brought out the booze, safely removed from authorities’ watchful gaze (though many law enforcement officials both in the region and further afield took bribes to look the other way).