C. Patrick Labadie Collection

C. Patrick Labadie Collection

The C. Patrick Labadie Collection within the Thunder Bay Sanctuary Research Collection is reputed to be one of the finest in the country regarding Great Lakes Maritime History. It represents one of the largest single repositories of historical material concerning 19th Century Great Lakes vessels in existence. Mr. Pat Labadie compiled much of this collection over the course of 40 years, with a deliberate goal of indexing every vessel to sail the lakes between 1800 and 1900. The collection has since grown to over 30,000 vessel images and data on approximately 14,000 individual vessels. This makes Alpena one of only a few sites in the country that has a collection of this magnitude. Mr. Labadie donated his collection to the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary & Underwater Preserve. The collection is housed at the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library.