A novel based on a true tale of heroism and invention in the tunnels: beneath Lake Erie in 1916 This original graphic novel imagines the lives o: blue-collar workers involved in the real-life Lake Erie tunnel disaster of: 1916 in Cleveland. Author Scott MacGregor and illustrator Gary Dumm tell: the intersecting stories of a brilliant African American inventor, Ben: Beltran (based on the real-life Garrett Morgan, Sr.), desperate immigrants: tunneling beneath Lake Erie, and corrupt overseers who risk countless live: for profit. As historical fiction, Fire on the Water sheds light not only: on one of America's earliest man-made ecological disasters but also on: racism and the economic disparity between classes in the Midwest at the: turn of the century: