The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Navy have announced the discovery of the wreck of USS Conestoga (AT-54), lost in 1921 en route to Pearl Harbor.

USS Conestoga at San Diego, California, January 1921. (Naval Historical Center Photograph NH 71299)

Launched in 1903 from Baltimore’s Sparrows Point shipyard, Conestoga towed coal barges for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co., until America’s entry into WWI; in 1917 the US Navy purchased the tug, commissioned as a minesweeper. After the war, she was eventually assigned to service in the Pacific. Conestoga departed San Francisco Bay bound for Pearl Harbor, to eventually go on to American Samoa. The tug never arrived at her destination, and the subsequent search provided no clues to her fate.

The wreck was discovered when NOAA researchers were mapping the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, off the California coast.

Read more about this story at the NOAA website.