SS Monumental City

The story

The Monumental City was a wooden screw steamer built in Baltimore in 1850. She had worked the California gold rush, carrying passengers between Nicaragua and San Francisco, before crossing the Pacific to the Victorian gold rush. She is described as one of the first screw steamers to make that crossing, at a time when most American steamers were paddle steamers.

She had been working the Australian coast for only about a month when she was wrecked on Tullaberga Island, close to Gabo Island, in May 1853. The official record gives navigational error as the cause. Thirty-seven people died, 35 of them passengers, including the ship’s owner, and two crew members.

The disaster led to the building of the Gabo Island lighthouse. Today the wreck lies in very shallow water with little of her structure left. Her engine, propeller and three anchors remain, along with scattered pieces of broken crockery, and Heritage Victoria holds 39 objects recovered from the site. The surviving engine parts and propeller are considered significant because they show the change from wooden-hulled steamships to iron screw steamers.

Archive photographs for this wreck are being gathered and will be added here.