Sunken Hopes : Treasure: Salvage firm reveals items from 19th-Century steamship that went down in Lake Erie. Experts call the wreck a ‘door in time.’

A team of San Pedro-based treasure hunters has found and begun salvaging a luxury steamship that sank to the bottom of Lake Erie in 1852, an operation that is expected to provide a window on 19th-Century life--and millions of dollars in gold coins, an official for the group said Tuesday.

Steve Morgan, president of the salvage firm Mar Dive Corp., also said his group has discovered a primitive submarine that was lost in an early attempt to explore the wreckage of the steamship Atlantic, which is under 180 feet of cold, fresh water that has kept its wooden structure remarkably intact.

“What we have here is a ship that’s preserved better than any ship found in the last 20 years,” the treasure hunter said at a Los Angeles news conference. “Doorknobs are still on the doors. The paddle wheels are just stunning. They’re the size of three-story buildings.”

The Atlantic collided with the freighter Ogdensburg about 2 a.m. on Aug. 20, 1852. The steamship vanished in the black waters of Lake Erie 30 minutes later, taking half of its 600 well-to-do passengers to their deaths.

The crew of the Ogdensburg rescued the survivors and the freighter limped to port in Erie, Pa.

The collision left a gaping hole in the wooden hull of the 265-foot-long Atlantic, Morgan said. And its two 70-foot-tall smokestacks crashed onto some cabins.

Morgan’s group, which includes four divers, hopes to enter the steamship’s inner cabins later this year. Meanwhile, because the Atlantic’s hull is buried in the lake bottom, tons of mud must be cleared away.

“It is a dangerous operation,” Morgan said. “You have cables and netting all over the ship.”

The group’s 60 investors already have spent about $200,000 on the salvage operation, Morgan said.

So far, the treasure hunters have recovered a few artifacts. Morgan displayed an oil-burning, copper and glass running lamp that might have enabled the Atlantic to avoid the collision if it had not been so foggy on that night in 1852. Some tools, including chisels and a wood plane, were also recovered. A box of Norwegian cheese was found, along with a pair of leather blacksmith mittens and leather shoes.

Archeologist Daniel A. Koski-Karell, executive director of the National Institute of Archeology in Washington, calls the find “one of the most spectacular underwater discoveries ever.” The head of the nonprofit research and educational organization said he has seen sonar images of the ship and some of the artifacts.

“If it’s done right, it will be like opening a door in time,” Koski-Karell said in a telephone interview. “The ability of this site to provide information and excellent objects that were in use during that time period is unprecedented in this country.”

Morgan said most of the ship’s artifacts will be sold at auction, but some might be donated to museums. His group hopes to raise the Atlantic to the surface in the next five years, put it into a larger ship and exhibit it around the country.

“This is profit-oriented,” Morgan said.

Mar Dive began its research in 1979, scouring maritime records and newspaper accounts, Morgan said. As a result, the treasure hunters placed the wreckage within a one-mile radius, which they scanned with sonar. They turned up what they thought was the Atlantic in June, 1989, but they were not sure because more than 100 ships have been lost in the same area. The route from Buffalo, N.Y., to Detroit was a key shipping lane heavy with passenger ship and freighter traffic.

But a diver surfaced in June, 1990, with an ironstone bowl cover that bore a likeness of the ship and the words “Steamer Atlantic.”

Morgan said the team waited until Tuesday to announce the find to give its four lawyers time to secure rights to the wreckage.

There have been numerous salvage attempts involving the Atlantic over the years.

In 1855, a diver salvaged an American Express safe containing $36,000 in gold coins and securities, Morgan said. That safe was easily accessible, but the treasure hunters are banking that several other safes--with millions in gold--are still aboard.

Another salvage attempt was undertaken in 1853 by Lodner Phillips, a young inventor from Marine City, Ind., who planned to use a primitive submarine to reach the Atlantic, Morgan said. But the underwater craft, made of iron plating and held together with steam-boiler rivets, was lost during an unmanned test when its rigging snagged on the steamship wreckage, Morgan said.

Mar Dive plans to raise the submarine on Aug. 20, the 139th anniversary of the Atlantic’s demise, Morgan said.