my Okoboji images

The Allen Ice Company truck is being dived again. Its location, even its existence was questioned for years. Divers knew the story. In 1948, a 1935 Ford truck driven Ralph Gregerson was being used to harvest ice on West Okoboji when it slipped into the water and sank into Smith's Bay. Don Gregerson ,Spirit Lake. Iowa, and son of the driver says that the truck didn't settle into the bottom. Its air-filled tires and wooden box left it buoyant enough to move along the bottom for years. He received occasional reports of its location from pilots who spotted it from the air. Divers didn't visit the truck though, they couldn't find it. It had been visited in the mid '60s but wasn't seen again and was assumed to be rusted away until Debbie Skarin of Milford, Iowa, stumbled across it while diving in front of the amusement park in 2000. She too was unable to relocate the truck. Summer lake resident, Jim Koenig of Charles City, Iowa, searched the area for weeks before finding and fixing its position May 30, 2001. It rests in the middle of Smith's Bay, in 20 feet of water on the hard sand bottom facing west-northwest. DNR fishing nets have pulled away part of the cab's top. Recent divers have collected the tools that rested on the truck's bed. They are in the Iowa Maritime Museum. There you can also see a photograph of the truck as it looked before it sank into the lake. The truck is too deteriorated to recover and restore. These photographs were made in May 2002.