A Look Inside Al Capone’s Sunken Prohibition Party Boat

During the height of prohibition, the Keuku was the sight of concerts and drunken revelry. Then, a murder doomed it to the bottom of Lake Charlevoix. (Photo: Chris Roxburgh)

Resting at the bottom of Michigan’s Lake Charlevoix lays the algae-covered shipwreck of the Keuku, a nearly 100-year-old barge that was reportedly used as a floating speakeasy by Al Capone during the height of prohibition.

Undersea photographer Chris Roxburgh recently made a deep dive to explore its secrets.

The 200-foot wooden barge, though far from its heyday, is still largely intact. As Roxburgh swam through the wreckage with an air tank and flashlight in tow, he sifted through the remains of a once booming nightlife scene, one which doubles as the site of an attempted murder that sank the future of the Keuku.

The Keuku’s wreckage reclaimed by sea life. (Photo: Chris Roxburgh)

The Keuku began life in 1889 as the A. Stewart, a tow barge that spent most of its life lugging lumber around the Great Lakes.

In 1928, the decrepit ship was purchased by a new owner and re-christened the Keuku. Under new management, the Keuku spent years floating through the ports of Lake Charlevoix’s towns, where it would pushed offshore to hold all manner of lively parties without intervention from the police.

Even at this point in its life, the Keuku had seen better days.

It would be towed across the lake from town to town by the steamship Ossian Beddell. Its interior would need to be pumped out daily, a task which was taken on by a caretaker who was rumored to have only been paid in whiskey.

(Photo: Chris Roxburgh)

On Jan. 1, 1931, a local newspaper would report the shooting of barge manager Ed Latham. The incident evidently occurred aboard the Keuku amidst drunken festivities four days earlier.

As story would have it, a guest named Ellsworth Ballant boarded the ship and quickly took issue with the manners of his fellow partygoers.

“On Saturday night, Ellsworth Ballant of Petoskey came with a lady — some say two. At about two a.m. some of the crowd had become noisy. Ballant had been annoyed, the story goes, because an East Jordanite would sit out dances with his dancing partner. Ballant ‘called’ the transgressive, and a quarrel was imminent,” reported the Boyne Citizen.

In the ensuing scuffle, it was manager Ed Latham who suffered a non-fatal shot from Latham.

Shortly after hearing the news, barge owner J.H. Gallagher reportedly decided to shutter the ship indefinitely.

Police would eventually auction off the ship to a church group. Though it’s unclear what exactly happened to the Keuku while it was in their hands, the ship was soon sunk 50 feet beneath water off the western shore of Lake Charlevoix, where it remains today.

(Photo: Chris Roxburgh)

“My favorite part of diving this wreck is just trying to envision what would’ve been going on there in the past,”  photographer Roxburgh told McClatchy News.

“The wreck is so long and large and not very deep that you can safely swim through the whole entire thing,” said Roxburgh. “I would encourage people to go check out this vessel in Lake Charlevoix, either novice divers or free divers or snorkelers because it’s such a big wreck that’s not too deep and it’s still intact, which is rare.”

You can check out Chris Roxburgh’s photography work here.

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