Max Nohl and the Underwater Necropolis
Max Gene Nohl is to deep sea diving and the emergence of SCUBA. Salvage diver, adventurer, MIT grad and Milwaukeean, Max Gene Nohl and a close knit team at DESCO (a Milwaukee based underwater diving equipment manufacturer he co-founded) created the first self contained underwater breathing apparatus(SCUBA) in the form of a lightweight heliox diving suit fitted with tanks and a wide view diving helmet. In the winter of 1937, he tested the suit and pioneered a helium/oxygen breathing mixture in a record breaking 420 foot dive to the bottom of Lake Michigan. The helium/oxygen mixture idea was developed with fellow Milwaukeean Dr. Edgar End of the Marquette School of Medicine. In one bold move, the diving world took a quantum leap forward and Milwaukee was ground zero. "The Deepest Dive" made international news and it's young diver was a sudden international celebrity. This was not the first dive using his new equipment. The previous summer had brought him to the pyramids of Rock Lake in Lake Mills, Wisconsin.
For years, fishermen and pleasure boaters had reported seeing unusual underwater structures in Rock Lake. Stories of a necropolis from an ancient native civilization lying at the bottom of Rock Lake had been around for some time. The structures were first described as "pyramidal" in newspaper articles during a wave of pyramid mania that swept the Badger State in the early 1900’s. Max Nohl could'nt resist. He made a series of test dives in the late summer. Underwater conditions were difficult - at times murky, suddenly clear, then black with silt. Toward the end of his last dive, he came across a tall pyramid structure made of densely fitted small rocks. To the eye of this trained engineer, the structure was man made. Academia blew off his reports. Max wanted to return to the lake and do a more extensive survey, but it wasn't to be. In February 1960, outside of Hope, Arkansas he and his wife died in a horrific head on collision that also took the life of soul singer, Jesse Belvin, entertainer Kirk Davis and Belvin’s wife, Joanna. Foul play was suspected. Witnesses say Belvin’s tires had been “razored” by a white mob just prior to the accident.
Follow the collection below for more on Max Nohl and Jessie Belvin.
