Supervisor Says County Will Remove S.S. Minnow

The S.S. Minnow without its hard top. Photo by Sophie Bolich.

A Milwaukee County Supervisor is pushing for the immediate removal of the beached boat known locally as the S.S. Minnow.

“What started as a curiosity has become an eyesore and a liability,” said Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman, chair of the board’s Committee on Parks and Culture. “This is a dangerous situation, and it is unacceptable that a privately owned boat has been left to rot on public land. Milwaukee County should not be responsible for the cost of cleanup or the risks posed by out-of-state tourists abandoning their property.”

Wasserman’s district includes the East Side of Milwaukee and the lakeshore where the Minnow has sat since last October. The boat ran aground when it ran out of gas looking for the entrance to the McKinley Marina. The owners Richard and Sherry Wells, of Mississippi, had just purchased the boat in Michigan.

The Wells abandoned the boat on the shoreline between Bradford and McKinley beaches. It has sat there for more than six months, becoming a local landmark and picking up several layers of graffiti in the meantime. Just recently, the top of the boat was ripped off by vandals.

A local salvager, Jerry Guyer, has attempted, without success, to remove the boat. Now the county’s Office of Corporation Counsel has determined the problem of removing the boat likely falls to the county, as it sits on county-owned land.

“According to Corporation Counsel James Davies, the county is responsible for removing the boat because it is embedded in bedrock with materials that have filled in around it over time,” Wasserman said. “As a result, neither the U.S. Coast Guard nor the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has jurisdiction in this case.”

Wasserman said the task is falling to Milwaukee County Parks, which is looking for a contractor to remove and salvage the boat. The supervisor said the county taxpayer should not bear the cost of removal and has committed to seeking reimbursement from whoever the “rightful owner” of the boat is.

“There are questions about the boat’s title, and preliminary findings suggest that the last legally registered owners may ultimately be responsible for the cost,” Wasserman said. “If the title wasn’t properly transferred, then the original owners could be on the hook.”

The boat wasn’t immediately removed by the U.S. Coast Guard because it was not leaking any fuel and therefore posed no environmental danger. But Wasserman has clearly had enough and said he wants the boat gone and quickly:

 “We want to get this boat off our beach as soon as possible.”

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