Before the UASC was founded, members of the Chicago Maritime Society partnered with the Illinois Historic Preservation agency to study the remains of the schooner David Dows in 1987.
They undertook the project to document the wreck and inform the public of its historic significance as the only five-masted schooner made for the Great Lakes.
After their project, the group released the location to the sport diving community, and later that summer, ten artifacts were vandalized and removed from the wreck.
[5] In 1989 Chicago area salvor Harry Zych announced his discovery of the wreck of the passenger side wheel steamer PS Lady Elgin that sank in 1860.
The IHPA requested that the UASC conduct preliminary documentation of the wreck sites that were spread out for more than a mile off the shores of Winnetka, Illinois, to understand what was left on the lake bottom.