A look at the SS Edmund Fitzgerald through the years, from launch to its sinking

Workers (seen at lower right) are dwarfed by the hull of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald during the massive ore carrier's construction on May 8, 1958. When it was completed, it was to be the largest freighter on the Great Lakes. The 729-foot ship was being built for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Milwaukee; the ship came within one foot of the size limit set by Army engineers for Sault Ste. Marie locks.

Work nears completion on the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a 25,891-ton bulk freighter being built for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. at the Great Lakes Engineering Works at River Rouge near Detroit. This view looks from the stern toward the bow, with the Detroit River in the background.

The 729-foot SS Edmund Fitzgerald - the largest ship ever built on the Great Lakes - is prepared for its launch at River Rouge near Detroit on June 5, 1958. Two more months of work remain on the huge ore carrier, owned by Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald swings a bottle of champagne as her husband, Edmund Fitzgerald, looks on at the christening the ore carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald in River Rouge, Michigan, in June 1958. Fitzgerald was chairman of the board of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., which owned the vessel.

The largest and longest vessel ever built on the Great Lakes, the 729-foot ore carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald, slides into the launching basin, on June 7, 1958, in River Rouge, Michigan. Two more months of interior work remained before the $8 million ship would be put into service. The ship's capacity would be 26,000 tons and speed up to 16 mph. The ship was owned by Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., and named for the company's chairman of the board.

The largest ship on the Great Lakes, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, arrives in Milwaukee for the first time in 1959. The 729-foot, $8 million ship was launched at River Rouge near Detroit on June 7, 1958, but Milwaukee was its home port. The ship was owned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., and named for its chairman of the board.

Edmund Fitzgerald, right, and his wife, Elizabeth, exit the ore carrier that bears his name during an open house of sorts for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Milwaukee in July 1959. Fitzgerald was president and chairman of the board of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., which owned the ship.

Standing in front of his namesake, Edmund Fitzgerald, chairman of the board of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., looks pleased after he was honored in a ceremony aboard ship on July 22, 1959, while anchored on the west side of Jones Island in Milwaukee. The Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore carrier and the largest ship on the Great Lakes, was in Milwaukee after being launched from Detroit the previous year. Hundreds of people lined up to take tours of the ship. This photo was in the July 23, 1959, Milwaukee Journal.

The Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald is shown in this 1959 photo.

In this 1960 photo, Edmund Fitzgerald looks approvingly at a model of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald given to him by employees at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. The model, which remained in his office long after the ship sank in 1975, was later given to the Wisconsin Maritime Historical Society, and put on display at the central branch of the Milwaukee Public Library.

Coast Guard officials direct the search for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald from the operations center at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, after the giant ore carrier disappeared on Nov. 10, 1975.

Coast Guard Chief Robert Andersen holds up a broken, oil-spotted oar from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 11, 1975. Also found were a number of life rings, an inflatable raft and other small items. The Edmund Fitzgerald sank the day before, Nov. 10,1975, off Whitefish Point in Lake Superior. None of the 29 crew members' bodies were found.

A heavily damaged lifeboat from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was found after the giant ore carrier sank on Nov. 10, 1975.

Coast Guard officers on a board of inquiry inspected life rings that were recovered from the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 24, 1975. The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in stormy weather in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975; all 29 crew members aboard perished and did not get a chance to use any of the lifesaving equipment.

This 1976 underwater photo shows a close-up of the pilot house of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald after it sank at the bottom of Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. The freighter split in two when it was caught in a severe storm and sank with its load of iron ore and crew of 29 men.

The wreckage of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is shown in this underwater photo taken by an unmanned submersible robot on Aug. 24, 1989. A research team was investigating the wreck site 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan

A model of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is seen next to singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, left, as he talks to Darrell Walton of Toledo, Ohio, right, after a memorial service commemorating the 25th anniversary of the sinking of the ship at the Mariner's Church of Detroit on Nov. 12, 2000. Lightfoot's song "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" immortalized the sinking of the ship, which went down in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. All 29 crew members, including Walton's uncle Ralph Grant Walton, went down with the ship.

A model of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is on display at the Central Library of the Milwaukee Public Library on March 26, 2014. The Wisconsin Marine Historical Society and the library planned to unveil Edmund Fitzgerald's model of his namesake ship the Edmund Fitzgerald at a ceremony at the library. The model originally was given to then Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. Board Chairman Edmund Fitzgerald by the employees on his 65th birthday, on March 1, 1960. The model was bequeathed to the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society by his son, Edmund B. Fitzgerald, when the latter died in 2013. Edmund Fitzgerald co-founded the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society in 1959 to support one of the largest repositories of Great Lakes maritime history, the Great Lakes Marine Collection at the library.