Ohio officials are using photographs, newspaper articles and underwater video taken from records at the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Centre in Vermilion.

The material, along with firsthand accounts of the wrecks, is being displayed on a state-run Web site: www.ohioshipwrecks.org.

The state also hopes to build interactive kiosks at the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermilion, the Steamship William G. Mather Maritime Museum in Cleveland and other places along the lake.

Roadside signs highlighting and explaining nearby shipwrecks will be raised along the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail, a national scenic byway.

There are an estimated 1,700 sunken ships in Lake Erie, but just 277 have been found and identified. The project details 28 of the lake's known shipwrecks.

"Every one of these wrecks has such a neat little story to go with it," said Dave Kelch, an Ohio Sea Grant Extension specialist.

One of the stories highlighted by the project is that of Lake Erie's most pursued wreck, the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2. The steamer disappeared in 1909 in a storm while travelling from Conneaut in northeast Ohio to Port Stanley, Ont.

A few days after it sank with its load of railroad cars, patrol boats off of Erie, Pa., discovered a lifeboat with nine frozen crew members. In all, 34 people lost their lives.

Several divers over the years have said they found the underwater remains of the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, but none of those claims have been confirmed.

A project brochure will be available at maritime museums and visitor bureaus along the lake by the Memorial Day holiday.

Ohio's coastal management office contributed $4,500, and the Ohio Lake Erie Commission donated $10,000 to the project.

Other Great Lakes states, such as Wisconsin, have already been promoting shipwreck education.

"These are relics of an age that came and went very quickly, and they tell us about things we can't find anywhere else," said John Karl, science writer with the Wisconsin Sea Grant.

For instance, shipbuilders sometimes built ships without blueprints, so finding wrecks help archaeologists understand how shipbuilding evolved, he said.