FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
CONTACT: Kathleen Klehr, Executive Director
(952-445-0378 or kklehr@scottcountyhistory.org)
Author Talk: Fred Johnson, The Sea Wing
Disaster: Tragedy on Lake Pepin
Day/Date: Thursday, November 6, 2014
Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Location: Scott County Historical Society
Cost: FREE!
Local author Fred Johnson will discuss his book The Sea Wing Disaster: Tragedy on Lake Pepin. He will
sign copies of the book following the talk.
About the author:
Award-winning author Fred Johnson has written extensively about Minnesota history. His book The Sea
Wing Disaster: Tragedy on Lake Pepin is a new and even more in-depth look at the tragic capsizing and
sinking of the Sea Wing. Johnson previously wrote about the event in an earlier version of the
book published in 1986.
About the book:
The Sea Wing Disaster: Tragedy on Lake Pepin examines the July 13, 1890 capsizing of the steamer Sea
Wing and the death of 98 of its passengers, a tragedy that horrified Minnesota and the nation. A severe
Lake Pepin storm hammered the riverboat, its attached barge, and their 215 passengers during a Sunday
evening return voyage to Red Wing. Residents of that city, home to most of the victims, suffered through
four days of anguish: the return of 52 of the dead to the city levee on Monday morning, 44 funerals on
Tuesday, cannons and dynamite used in hope of raising bodies of the missing, and the recovery of the
remaining victims on Wednesday and Thursday. Twin City newspapers rightfully called Red Wing the
“City of the Dead,” but small Wisconsin river-bordering communities also suffered. Diamond Bluff and
Trenton each saw ten killed. In terms of lives lost, the wreck of the Sea Wing ranks among the most
deadly accidents on the nation’s inland waters.
The Scott County Historical Society is located at 235 Fuller Street South, Shakopee, MN 55379, three
blocks south of the intersection of Co. Rd. 101 and Fuller Street. Visit us online at
www.scottcountyhistory.org.
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