NAUVOO, Ill. (WGEM) - Monday marks exactly 50 years since the Edmund Fitzgerald, a Great Lakes freighter that was en route to Detroit, sank to the bottom of Lake Superior during a massive storm.

The sinking claimed the lives of all 29 crew members who were aboard.

As communities that border the Great Lakes remember the tragedy, so is one man who wasn’t far away that night 50 years ago.

“I can’t get it out of my mind. I wished I could,” Nauvoo-native Bob Baxter said.

Baxter was a first assistant engineer on the L.E. Block on Nov. 10, 1975. He remembers the storm for its 80 mph winds, the most aggressive wind he’s ever experienced.

The L.E. Block had left from a port in Indiana, headed for Duluth, Minnesota. The Edmund Fitzgerald left on Nov. 9 from Superior, Wisconsin, which is directl

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