Washington salvage company discovers location of famous shipwreck nearly 150 years later

A salvage company in Washington has located wreckage from one of the deadliest maritime disasters in Northwest history off Cape Flattery near the Neah Bay.

The sonar images are unmistakable to the trained eye. They show a shipwreck more than 1,000-feet deep off the Washington coast.

In November of 1875 the steamship S-S Pacific was traveling from Seattle to San Francisco when it collided with a large sailing ship in the dark of night.

"It had a major impact on the Northwest. It was the first ship that was carrying passengers on a regularly scheduled service between Seattle and San Francisco."

Current estimates put the number of passengers at 325 people, but there were probably more. Only two people survived.

Also on board were tons of oats and hops, hides, 230 tons of coal, and a substantial amount of gold.

Jeff Hummel has been exploring Northwest waters since the 80s and his love of history has driven him to search for Pacific. It was an endeavor that began in 1993 and was reignited in 2017, after years of painstaking research.

"Eventually I found a commercial fisherman who brought up some old coal and just by strange circumstance he happened to still have the piece and so I was able to get it chemically analyzed by a laboratory up in Alberta," Hummel said.