September 7, 2025 • 22 mins
A company picnic that ended in catastrophe. A passenger ship that should never have sailed. 844 lives lost just 20 feet from shore.
The SS Eastland disaster remains one of America's deadliest maritime tragedies, yet has been largely forgotten by history. On that fateful July morning in 1915, thousands of Western Electric employees and their families boarded what was known as the "Speed Queen of the Great Lakes" for a day of celebration. Within minutes, the top-heavy vessel capsized in the Chicago River before even departing the dock.
We dive deep into the perfect storm of engineering failures, corporate negligence, and regulatory oversights that doomed the Eastland from its construction. You'll hear the harrowing stories of passengers sliding across tilting decks as heavy equipment broke free, crushing those in its path. Most heartbreaking were the mothers who had brought their children inside to escape a light rain, unwittingly placing them in what would become death traps as water flooded the interior compartments.
The statistics are staggering – 70% of victims under age 25, forty children orphaned, and twenty-two entire families completely wiped out. But equally shocking is how preventable this tragedy was. From its keel-less design and inadequate ballast systems to the bewildering decision to replace wooden floors with concrete, the Eastland was a disaster waiting to happen. Despite numerous red flags during inspections, no meaningful corrections were ever mandated.
Perhaps most disturbing of all? Not a single person was ever held accountable for the 844 lives lost that day. The ship itself was later refurbished, renamed, and served as a Navy training vessel until 1947 – a strange epilogue to such devastating loss.
Join us as we uncover this forgotten chapter of American history that reminds us how quickly life can change, and why we must learn from the disasters of our past. Remember, chase that dream and live for today, because as the Eastland tragedy shows us, tomorrow is never guaranteed.
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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Can we go back to the days companies took care of
their people and did shit liketaking them on big picnics and
cruises, which, coincidentally,if you're listening to this, the
week of release, is where I am.
I'm out on a cruise somewhere.
Where to Hell, if I know mywife does all that planning shit
(00:22):
?
I just get in the car, find outwhen we get there.
Anyways, hopefully I'm out onthe boat somewhere and not in
the middle of a repeat of the SSEastland.
They didn't even get a chanceto leave the dock before the
boat capsized and claimed thelives of 844 passengers.
So what happened?
(00:44):
I'm Andrew and this isHistory's A Disaster.
Tonight we are taking a diveinto the SS Eastland sinking way
back in 1915.
And I have got to stop sayingtaking a dive.
(01:06):
It's got some pretty negativeconnotations here.
And tonight's episode isbrought to you by Big Boy Bob's
Buffet.
Are you tired of being skinny?
Then come on down to Big BoyBob's Buffet, where you can eat
until you're stuffed and fallingover for only $4.99, drink
(01:27):
included, as long as it's water.
Saturday July 24th 1915 startedout as a warm, overcast day.
Excitement filled the air asthe large crowd started to form
(01:47):
at the Clark Street Bridge onthe south bank of the Chicago
River.
It was just after 6 am andnearly 5,000 people were on hand
, all hoping to get there earlyenough to get a good seat on one
of the three boats.
They were all employees andtheir families of the Western
Electric Company, and today wasthe company's picnic, with
round-trip fare on the boatsbeing a dollar for adults and 50
(02:09):
cents for kids.
Over 7,000 tickets were sold.
It was the largest turnout forthe annual picnic yet and they
were all dressed in their bestoutfits.
The single men were hoping toattract the eye of the fairer
sex.
Kids ran around or were carriedby their moms as dad lugged
about their baggage.
(02:30):
By 6.30, the loading began.
Attendants using clickers tocount the passengers as they
loaded onto the first availableship, the Eastland.
Nearly 50 people a minutewalked across the 8-foot-long
gangplank to anxiously getaboard.
The boat started to dip downnearly a foot under the weight.
(02:51):
The engineers worked the pumpsto right the ship, but as more
passengers boarded, the shipbegan to list again in the other
direction.
They got it straightened outagain, just for it to tilt the
other way.
They tried to shuffle thepassengers around to
redistribute the weight, butmany did not comply.
The boat was quickly past itsmax capacity of 2,500 passengers
(03:15):
.
Inside the ship, the youngerpassengers on the slick dance
floor laughed and made the bestof the ship tilting, laughing
and sliding along the floor asthey made preparations to leave.
The stern lines were released.
The rear end swung free outinto the river, unknown to
everyone but a tugboat operator.
(03:36):
The forward lines, stillholding the Eastland by the nose
to the dock, were pulled tight.
The nose to the dock or pulledtight.
They were under immense tensionas they held the Eastland
upright and tied to the dock.
The boat continued to lift thestarboard.
People slid across the floor,plates and bottles fell from
(03:58):
shelves.
Some tried to evacuate by anymeans, opting to go over the
rail and into the chilly ChicagoRiver.
Others jumped and grabbed ontoropes and climbed hand over hand
back to the docks.
As it dipped further andfurther into the river, the
water rushed into the opengangway and any hole it could
(04:20):
find, dragging the boat downquicker.
The bow lines pulled on themassive timbers of the dock,
pulling one loose.
Other lines snapped in half.
The boat was now free from thedock and free to capsize.
As the boat hit a 45 degree tilt, the screams started.
Panic set in as passengers onthe port side slid towards the
(04:44):
railing, the only protectionfrom dropping into the river.
That was getting closer andcloser.
As the boat tilted and wasdragged onto its side, the piano
on the promenade deck slidesand barely avoids knocking over
two fleeing women.
The refrigerator in the barcrashes down, pinning a
passenger beneath it.
(05:04):
A soda fountain broke loose andsmashed into a crowd, crushing
those beneath it.
Fleeing passengers on the maindeck crowd into the stairwells,
causing a choke point.
As people are crushed into them, people at the starboard rail
jump off, making it to the riveror the wharf.
The Eastland finally settles onits side in the mud and 20 feet
(05:27):
of water of the Chicago River.
Survival had come down to puredumb luck of being in the right
place.
As the boat tilted over, manybecame trapped inside the ship.
As the walls became the floorsand ceilings, water filled the
(05:49):
interior, quickly blocking exitsand trapping more passengers.
Some could only look helplesslyout the starboard portholes
above their heads as they clungdesperately to anything they
could find to stay above thewaterline.
Rescue efforts began almostimmediately.
Nearby tugboats swung in tohelp pull people, both living
(06:12):
and dead, from the river.
Others nearby dove into theriver to help.
Henry Scalier, a local cop,would be one of the first ones
on the water.
He grabbed a nearby rowboat andwould go on to pull over 50
people out of the water.
The tugboats and fireboatswould pull over a hundred other
(06:32):
survivors from the river.
Peter Boyle, who was a lookouton a nearby steamer, the
Petulski, left from a lightboatthat was being lowered into the
water.
He was making a desperateattempt to save a drowning woman
.
During his attempt they wereboth pulled under the water and
never resurfaced.
(06:54):
William Gowdy, a 46-year-oldswimming coach at the Illinois
Athletic Club, was on the docksduring the accident.
He dove in and helped rescueseveral people.
While attempting to rescue awoman beneath the ship, he got
caught up in some ropes anddrowned.
Lynn, the assistant harbormaster, made several desperate
(07:17):
phone calls to boat companies inthe area.
They needed someone to come outto cut holes in the sides of
the ship.
The only chance those stilltrapped inside had was to come
out the portholes and theyneeded to be cut out.
Otz welders were soon on sceneand began cutting holes in the
ship.
Ropes were lowered through theholes and more survivors were
(07:41):
pulled from the ship.
They were quickly held down theslick side to waiting boats and
taken ashore for treatment bythe waiting doctors and nurses.
This scene was complete chaosand shocking even to experienced
medical personnel showing up tohelp.
People were struggling in thewater, clustered so thickly that
they literally covered thesurface of the river.
(08:03):
A few were swimming, the restwere floundering about, some
clinging to a life raft that hadfloated free, others clutching
at anything they could reach andbits of wood, each other
grabbing each other, pullingeach other down and screaming.
Screams filled the air.
(08:33):
Rescuers were pulling survivorsout from below decks, out of
the water and out through theportholes.
People were being dragged out,wet, bleeding and hysterical.
Most of those from the decksand the inside of the boat were
cut up, some worse than othersfrom the chairs and benches and
other debris that had slid downon top of them.
When the boat went over.
Within an hour of the sinking,the Iroquois Memorial Hospital
(08:57):
and other area hospitals werebeing overwhelmed with injured.
Ambulances raced across thecity to reach hospitals.
Further out, thousands ofpeople filled and choked the
streets.
Trucks and ambulances andhorse-drawn carts had to fight
through the crowd to reach theriver.
Red Cross doctors workedthrough the injured, injecting
(09:20):
them with strychnine in anattempt to revive them.
And yes, they used what is nowmostly in rat poison and
pesticides as a stimulant.
So next time your buddy'sdrowning, just feed him some rat
poison to wake him up.
But this was successful in atleast one attempt to revive
someone.
(09:41):
What few nurses had firstarrived did what they could for
first aid but were overwhelmedby the sheer number of injuries.
By the end of the day theirwhite nurses' uniforms would be
stained with blood and mud.
The hospitals were overcrowdedand in dire need, more and more
(10:01):
injured straggled in wet andshivering in the cold, and they
were quickly out of blankets.
One of the nurses at IroquoisMemorial put in a call to
Marshall Fields and ordered 500blankets, and of course the bill
should go to Western ElectricCompany.
Another nurse called arearestaurants for all the hot soup
(10:24):
and coffee they could send over.
The hospital was beyondcapacity and they had nowhere
for the less seriously injured.
Fortunately, some men from anearby building offered to take
some of them in and take care ofthem.
Others were taken care ofquickly and sent home to be with
family.
Care of quickly and sent hometo be with family.
(10:48):
To this end.
One nurse would flag down everyvehicle she saw and loaded up
with survivors to send home.
Not a single driver refused orhesitated to help.
Everyone in the area was comingtogether to get help.
By 9 am, the rescue effortturned into a recovery operation
, one that was being slowed downas the weather turned to shit.
(11:08):
Body after body was pulled fromthe hold of the ship as the
rain poured down.
Doctors and nurses on scenecould not keep up with the
amount of people being pulledfrom the ship.
Bodies were everywhere, liningthe dock, the sidewalks and
bridges.
The growing crowd of peoplepressed in, making medical
(11:30):
personnel's job nearlyimpossible.
They kept getting in the way oftheir efforts.
A cop on scene was able tosecure the use of a nearby
warehouse and they began to movethe bodies there.
Out of the hundreds of bodiesmoved into the warehouse, and
they began to move the bodiesthere.
Out of the hundreds of bodiesmoved into the warehouse, they
were only able to revive four ofthem.
As the morning dragged on, thecrowd got bigger, filling with
(11:54):
family members desperate to findtheir loved ones.
Uninjured survivors, dazed andstill in shock, wandered
aimlessly through the crowd.
By noon, rescuers had reachedthe inner cabins of the ship.
Nearly every body that came outwas either a woman or a child.
Right before the ship capsized,a light rain had started and
(12:18):
mothers had taken their kidsinside out of the weather and
became trapped there.
During the tragedy, recoveryefforts would keep going on into
(12:38):
the following days.
Healing, both physically andmentally, would take much longer
.
As families searched for theirloved ones, some others who had
entered the 2nd Regiment Armory,which was now being used as a
morgue, was caught stealingjewelry, watches and money from
the dead.
For several days, volunteersled small groups up and down
(12:58):
rows looking for birthmarks,scars, clothing, watches,
anything to help identify thedead.
When this happened, thevolunteer would shout identified
and then a pair ofstretcher-carrying volunteers
would bring the body to a tablewhere a proper death certificate
could be registered.
(13:18):
Unfortunately, there would be alot of misidentification, which
would just cause more grief forall the families involved.
As the identifications continuedthrough the week, one little
boy had remained unclaimed.
The officers and ward workersnicknamed him Littlefeller.
(13:38):
His body would eventually bebrought to a West Madison
neighborhood where a friendrecognized him as Willie Novotny
.
His grandmother confirmed thisby sending an extra pair of
pants to see if they matched theones he wore.
She just could not bringherself to go down to make the
ID in person.
(13:58):
Sadly, willie's parents, jamesand Agnes, along with his
nine-year-old sister, mimi, haddied with him.
More than 5,000 people attendedhis funeral on July 31st and
his funeral procession wouldstretch over a mile.
(14:22):
Western Electric spent $100,000to set up a relief fund for the
victims, as well as starting afundraiser that brought in
another $475,000.
That's roughly $3,450,000.
$15 million adjusted to today'smoney.
They would also cover allfuneral and burial costs.
(14:44):
52 gravediggers worked aroundthe clock in preparation for all
the funerals.
July 28th would be a busy daywith 700 of them.
The packed funeral homes didnot have enough hearses, so
Marshall Fields loaned them 39trucks to assist.
In total, 844 people died in thewreck just 20 feet from shore.
(15:09):
70% of the victims had beenunder the age of 25, and the
majority of them were women andchildren.
286 had been teenagers oryounger women and children.
286 had been teenagers oryounger.
40 children had been orphanedas both parents had died, and 22
entire families had been wipedout.
(15:30):
An investigation was launchedinto the causes just days after
the tragedy.
Criminal charges would be filedagainst the owners and Captain
Peterson and Chief EngineerJoseph Erickson.
No one would be indicted andface any repercussions for the
tragedy, and they wouldeventually fix up the Eastland,
(15:54):
slap a new coat of paint on itand some guns and rename it the
SS Wilmot.
It was mostly used as atraining boat on the Great Lakes
for the Navy.
It would eventually bedecommissioned and scrapped in
1947 after the war ended.
Okay, so why did this happen?
(16:21):
Well, boat was fucked up fromthe start and they just kept
making things worse.
The SS Eastland, nicknamed theSpeed Queen of the Great Lakes,
started out life in 1902, beingcommissioned by the Michigan
Steamboat Company and built inPort Huron, michigan, by the
(16:42):
Jenks Shipbuilding Company, andwas completed by May of 1903.
And there was problems from thestart.
In July of that year, while itwould take only minor damage, it
hit and sunk a tugboat that wastied up.
In August they had a smallmutiny.
Six firemen refused to stokethe fire in the ship's boiler
(17:06):
because they didn't get theirpotatoes at dinner.
And you know what I get itPotatoes are awesome.
I'd have been pissed too.
Maybe not let me risk my job,pissed, but pissed nonetheless.
They would end up getting heldat gunpoint until they made it
to shore and arrested for mutinyall over some damn potatoes.
(17:33):
And when the ship was originallybuilt it was made to carry 500
passengers out onto the lake andthen transport produce to
Chicago.
It was built without a keel andrelied on some shitty ballast
tanks to keep it stable and itwas kind of slow and its depth
was too deep, so it had troublegoing up and down the Black
(17:56):
River.
You know what the MichiganSteamboat Company didn't like
that shit at all.
You know what the MichiganSteamboat Company didn't like
that shit at all.
So after its first year on thelake, they sent it back to Port
Huron for modification.
During the modifications theyincreased power to the boilers
to add speed, they movedequipment on top of the ship to
(18:16):
reduce the draft and they addeda bunch of staterooms to
eventually carry close to 3,000passengers.
All of which greatly affectedthe metacentric height of the
ship and fucked up the stability.
As originally designed, thismetacentric height is critical
(18:36):
to a boat's stability.
Boats, or really any floatingobjects, are like an upside-down
pendulum with a center ofgravity and the ability to roll
or heel to either side beforerighting itself.
The distance between fullyupright and the maximum heel,
which is the point beyond whichit will capsize, is its
(18:59):
metacentric height.
The higher the height, thebetter.
That means it'll take longer tohit that point of no return.
This metacentric height for theEastland should have been
between two to four feet.
It was not.
It was much lower, with someestimates putting it around four
inches at the time of thedisaster.
(19:28):
After this first round ofmodifications it was faster,
beating other boats and racesits second year in service,
earning it the Speed Queen title.
But that came with the cost ofmajor instability.
There was two near-listingincidents in the following year
that led them to removing someof the staterooms and reducing
the passenger capacity to 2,500.
But the problem remained.
(19:49):
And during all of this the boatwas passing yearly government
inspections.
While the inspectors wouldthrow up red flags about the
issues, there was never anyfollow-through, and this is
purely my speculation, but giventhat notoriously corrupt
Chicago was involved, I'm gonnaassume money was changing hands
(20:12):
to make those red flagsdisappear.
The sinking of the Titanic in1912 only made the problems with
the ship worse.
In 1915, the Seaman's Act waspassed.
This required all boats tocarry enough light boats to take
every passenger.
The Eastland was designed tocarry only six boats.
(20:34):
Originally, on the day of thecapsizing it carried 11, along
with 37 life rafts.
This made an already top-heavyboat worse and severely degraded
its stability.
Adding to all this, nothing wasever done to upgrade or fix the
blast tanks and pumps, so ithad no chance of keeping up with
(20:59):
the increased demands.
No chance of keeping up withthe increased demands.
And on top of all this, whenthe ship was bought in 1914 by
the St Joseph and ChicagoSteamboat Company, they decided
to rip out some of the hardwoodflooring and replace it with two
inches of concrete.
The total amount of concreteadded increased the weight of
(21:19):
the ship nearly 20 tons, and Icannot figure out why anyone
would think this was a good ideaTo passenger ship.
Why the fuck would you replacehardwood flooring with concrete?
Anyways, this boat was destinedto fail.
You can't keep adding weight ontop of something without
(21:41):
supporting it from the bottom.
It's going to fall overeventually, and that was the SS
Eastland disaster, a tragedythat was quickly overshadowed in
the following years as thecountry entered World War.
I Thanks for listening followingyears as the country entered
(22:04):
World War.
I Thanks for listening and ifyou liked the show, please
consider leaving a rating orreview on your Apple choice, and
you can reach out to the showat historiesofdisaster at
gmailcom with questions,comments or suggestions, as well
as following the show on socialmedia like Facebook, instagram,
Tumblr and a few others TikTok,youtube, whatever and share the
(22:26):
episode.
Your friends will love it.
Take care of yourself out there.
Chase that dream, live fortoday, because tomorrow is never
guaranteed.
Thanks and goodbye.
Can we go back to the days companies took care of
their people and did shit liketaking them on big picnics and
cruises, which, coincidentally,if you're listening to this, the
week of release, is where I am.
I'm out on a cruise somewhere.
Where to Hell, if I know mywife does all that planning shit
(00:22):
?
I just get in the car, find outwhen we get there.
Anyways, hopefully I'm out onthe boat somewhere and not in
the middle of a repeat of the SSEastland.
They didn't even get a chanceto leave the dock before the
boat capsized and claimed thelives of 844 passengers.
So what happened?
(00:44):
I'm Andrew and this isHistory's A Disaster.
Tonight we are taking a diveinto the SS Eastland sinking way
back in 1915.
And I have got to stop sayingtaking a dive.
(01:06):
It's got some pretty negativeconnotations here.
And tonight's episode isbrought to you by Big Boy Bob's
Buffet.
Are you tired of being skinny?
Then come on down to Big BoyBob's Buffet, where you can eat
until you're stuffed and fallingover for only $4.99, drink
(01:27):
included, as long as it's water.
Saturday July 24th 1915 startedout as a warm, overcast day.
Excitement filled the air asthe large crowd started to form
(01:47):
at the Clark Street Bridge onthe south bank of the Chicago
River.
It was just after 6 am andnearly 5,000 people were on hand
, all hoping to get there earlyenough to get a good seat on one
of the three boats.
They were all employees andtheir families of the Western
Electric Company, and today wasthe company's picnic, with
round-trip fare on the boatsbeing a dollar for adults and 50
(02:09):
cents for kids.
Over 7,000 tickets were sold.
It was the largest turnout forthe annual picnic yet and they
were all dressed in their bestoutfits.
The single men were hoping toattract the eye of the fairer
sex.
Kids ran around or were carriedby their moms as dad lugged
about their baggage.
(02:30):
By 6.30, the loading began.
Attendants using clickers tocount the passengers as they
loaded onto the first availableship, the Eastland.
Nearly 50 people a minutewalked across the 8-foot-long
gangplank to anxiously getaboard.
The boat started to dip downnearly a foot under the weight.
(02:51):
The engineers worked the pumpsto right the ship, but as more
passengers boarded, the shipbegan to list again in the other
direction.
They got it straightened outagain, just for it to tilt the
other way.
They tried to shuffle thepassengers around to
redistribute the weight, butmany did not comply.
The boat was quickly past itsmax capacity of 2,500 passengers
(03:15):
.
Inside the ship, the youngerpassengers on the slick dance
floor laughed and made the bestof the ship tilting, laughing
and sliding along the floor asthey made preparations to leave.
The stern lines were released.
The rear end swung free outinto the river, unknown to
everyone but a tugboat operator.
(03:36):
The forward lines, stillholding the Eastland by the nose
to the dock, were pulled tight.
The nose to the dock or pulledtight.
They were under immense tensionas they held the Eastland
upright and tied to the dock.
The boat continued to lift thestarboard.
People slid across the floor,plates and bottles fell from
(03:58):
shelves.
Some tried to evacuate by anymeans, opting to go over the
rail and into the chilly ChicagoRiver.
Others jumped and grabbed ontoropes and climbed hand over hand
back to the docks.
As it dipped further andfurther into the river, the
water rushed into the opengangway and any hole it could
(04:20):
find, dragging the boat downquicker.
The bow lines pulled on themassive timbers of the dock,
pulling one loose.
Other lines snapped in half.
The boat was now free from thedock and free to capsize.
As the boat hit a 45 degree tilt, the screams started.
Panic set in as passengers onthe port side slid towards the
(04:44):
railing, the only protectionfrom dropping into the river.
That was getting closer andcloser.
As the boat tilted and wasdragged onto its side, the piano
on the promenade deck slidesand barely avoids knocking over
two fleeing women.
The refrigerator in the barcrashes down, pinning a
passenger beneath it.
(05:04):
A soda fountain broke loose andsmashed into a crowd, crushing
those beneath it.
Fleeing passengers on the maindeck crowd into the stairwells,
causing a choke point.
As people are crushed into them, people at the starboard rail
jump off, making it to the riveror the wharf.
The Eastland finally settles onits side in the mud and 20 feet
(05:27):
of water of the Chicago River.
Survival had come down to puredumb luck of being in the right
place.
As the boat tilted over, manybecame trapped inside the ship.
As the walls became the floorsand ceilings, water filled the
(05:49):
interior, quickly blocking exitsand trapping more passengers.
Some could only look helplesslyout the starboard portholes
above their heads as they clungdesperately to anything they
could find to stay above thewaterline.
Rescue efforts began almostimmediately.
Nearby tugboats swung in tohelp pull people, both living
(06:12):
and dead, from the river.
Others nearby dove into theriver to help.
Henry Scalier, a local cop,would be one of the first ones
on the water.
He grabbed a nearby rowboat andwould go on to pull over 50
people out of the water.
The tugboats and fireboatswould pull over a hundred other
(06:32):
survivors from the river.
Peter Boyle, who was a lookouton a nearby steamer, the
Petulski, left from a lightboatthat was being lowered into the
water.
He was making a desperateattempt to save a drowning woman
.
During his attempt they wereboth pulled under the water and
never resurfaced.
(06:54):
William Gowdy, a 46-year-oldswimming coach at the Illinois
Athletic Club, was on the docksduring the accident.
He dove in and helped rescueseveral people.
While attempting to rescue awoman beneath the ship, he got
caught up in some ropes anddrowned.
Lynn, the assistant harbormaster, made several desperate
(07:17):
phone calls to boat companies inthe area.
They needed someone to come outto cut holes in the sides of
the ship.
The only chance those stilltrapped inside had was to come
out the portholes and theyneeded to be cut out.
Otz welders were soon on sceneand began cutting holes in the
ship.
Ropes were lowered through theholes and more survivors were
(07:41):
pulled from the ship.
They were quickly held down theslick side to waiting boats and
taken ashore for treatment bythe waiting doctors and nurses.
This scene was complete chaosand shocking even to experienced
medical personnel showing up tohelp.
People were struggling in thewater, clustered so thickly that
they literally covered thesurface of the river.
(08:03):
A few were swimming, the restwere floundering about, some
clinging to a life raft that hadfloated free, others clutching
at anything they could reach andbits of wood, each other
grabbing each other, pullingeach other down and screaming.
Screams filled the air.
(08:33):
Rescuers were pulling survivorsout from below decks, out of
the water and out through theportholes.
People were being dragged out,wet, bleeding and hysterical.
Most of those from the decksand the inside of the boat were
cut up, some worse than othersfrom the chairs and benches and
other debris that had slid downon top of them.
When the boat went over.
Within an hour of the sinking,the Iroquois Memorial Hospital
(08:57):
and other area hospitals werebeing overwhelmed with injured.
Ambulances raced across thecity to reach hospitals.
Further out, thousands ofpeople filled and choked the
streets.
Trucks and ambulances andhorse-drawn carts had to fight
through the crowd to reach theriver.
Red Cross doctors workedthrough the injured, injecting
(09:20):
them with strychnine in anattempt to revive them.
And yes, they used what is nowmostly in rat poison and
pesticides as a stimulant.
So next time your buddy'sdrowning, just feed him some rat
poison to wake him up.
But this was successful in atleast one attempt to revive
someone.
(09:41):
What few nurses had firstarrived did what they could for
first aid but were overwhelmedby the sheer number of injuries.
By the end of the day theirwhite nurses' uniforms would be
stained with blood and mud.
The hospitals were overcrowdedand in dire need, more and more
(10:01):
injured straggled in wet andshivering in the cold, and they
were quickly out of blankets.
One of the nurses at IroquoisMemorial put in a call to
Marshall Fields and ordered 500blankets, and of course the bill
should go to Western ElectricCompany.
Another nurse called arearestaurants for all the hot soup
(10:24):
and coffee they could send over.
The hospital was beyondcapacity and they had nowhere
for the less seriously injured.
Fortunately, some men from anearby building offered to take
some of them in and take care ofthem.
Others were taken care ofquickly and sent home to be with
family.
Care of quickly and sent hometo be with family.
(10:48):
To this end.
One nurse would flag down everyvehicle she saw and loaded up
with survivors to send home.
Not a single driver refused orhesitated to help.
Everyone in the area was comingtogether to get help.
By 9 am, the rescue effortturned into a recovery operation
, one that was being slowed downas the weather turned to shit.
(11:08):
Body after body was pulled fromthe hold of the ship as the
rain poured down.
Doctors and nurses on scenecould not keep up with the
amount of people being pulledfrom the ship.
Bodies were everywhere, liningthe dock, the sidewalks and
bridges.
The growing crowd of peoplepressed in, making medical
(11:30):
personnel's job nearlyimpossible.
They kept getting in the way oftheir efforts.
A cop on scene was able tosecure the use of a nearby
warehouse and they began to movethe bodies there.
Out of the hundreds of bodiesmoved into the warehouse, and
they began to move the bodiesthere.
Out of the hundreds of bodiesmoved into the warehouse, they
were only able to revive four ofthem.
As the morning dragged on, thecrowd got bigger, filling with
(11:54):
family members desperate to findtheir loved ones.
Uninjured survivors, dazed andstill in shock, wandered
aimlessly through the crowd.
By noon, rescuers had reachedthe inner cabins of the ship.
Nearly every body that came outwas either a woman or a child.
Right before the ship capsized,a light rain had started and
(12:18):
mothers had taken their kidsinside out of the weather and
became trapped there.
During the tragedy, recoveryefforts would keep going on into
(12:38):
the following days.
Healing, both physically andmentally, would take much longer
.
As families searched for theirloved ones, some others who had
entered the 2nd Regiment Armory,which was now being used as a
morgue, was caught stealingjewelry, watches and money from
the dead.
For several days, volunteersled small groups up and down
(12:58):
rows looking for birthmarks,scars, clothing, watches,
anything to help identify thedead.
When this happened, thevolunteer would shout identified
and then a pair ofstretcher-carrying volunteers
would bring the body to a tablewhere a proper death certificate
could be registered.
(13:18):
Unfortunately, there would be alot of misidentification, which
would just cause more grief forall the families involved.
As the identifications continuedthrough the week, one little
boy had remained unclaimed.
The officers and ward workersnicknamed him Littlefeller.
(13:38):
His body would eventually bebrought to a West Madison
neighborhood where a friendrecognized him as Willie Novotny
.
His grandmother confirmed thisby sending an extra pair of
pants to see if they matched theones he wore.
She just could not bringherself to go down to make the
ID in person.
(13:58):
Sadly, willie's parents, jamesand Agnes, along with his
nine-year-old sister, mimi, haddied with him.
More than 5,000 people attendedhis funeral on July 31st and
his funeral procession wouldstretch over a mile.
(14:22):
Western Electric spent $100,000to set up a relief fund for the
victims, as well as starting afundraiser that brought in
another $475,000.
That's roughly $3,450,000.
$15 million adjusted to today'smoney.
They would also cover allfuneral and burial costs.
(14:44):
52 gravediggers worked aroundthe clock in preparation for all
the funerals.
July 28th would be a busy daywith 700 of them.
The packed funeral homes didnot have enough hearses, so
Marshall Fields loaned them 39trucks to assist.
In total, 844 people died in thewreck just 20 feet from shore.
(15:09):
70% of the victims had beenunder the age of 25, and the
majority of them were women andchildren.
286 had been teenagers oryounger women and children.
286 had been teenagers oryounger.
40 children had been orphanedas both parents had died, and 22
entire families had been wipedout.
(15:30):
An investigation was launchedinto the causes just days after
the tragedy.
Criminal charges would be filedagainst the owners and Captain
Peterson and Chief EngineerJoseph Erickson.
No one would be indicted andface any repercussions for the
tragedy, and they wouldeventually fix up the Eastland,
(15:54):
slap a new coat of paint on itand some guns and rename it the
SS Wilmot.
It was mostly used as atraining boat on the Great Lakes
for the Navy.
It would eventually bedecommissioned and scrapped in
1947 after the war ended.
Okay, so why did this happen?
(16:21):
Well, boat was fucked up fromthe start and they just kept
making things worse.
The SS Eastland, nicknamed theSpeed Queen of the Great Lakes,
started out life in 1902, beingcommissioned by the Michigan
Steamboat Company and built inPort Huron, michigan, by the
(16:42):
Jenks Shipbuilding Company, andwas completed by May of 1903.
And there was problems from thestart.
In July of that year, while itwould take only minor damage, it
hit and sunk a tugboat that wastied up.
In August they had a smallmutiny.
Six firemen refused to stokethe fire in the ship's boiler
(17:06):
because they didn't get theirpotatoes at dinner.
And you know what I get itPotatoes are awesome.
I'd have been pissed too.
Maybe not let me risk my job,pissed, but pissed nonetheless.
They would end up getting heldat gunpoint until they made it
to shore and arrested for mutinyall over some damn potatoes.
(17:33):
And when the ship was originallybuilt it was made to carry 500
passengers out onto the lake andthen transport produce to
Chicago.
It was built without a keel andrelied on some shitty ballast
tanks to keep it stable and itwas kind of slow and its depth
was too deep, so it had troublegoing up and down the Black
(17:56):
River.
You know what the MichiganSteamboat Company didn't like
that shit at all.
You know what the MichiganSteamboat Company didn't like
that shit at all.
So after its first year on thelake, they sent it back to Port
Huron for modification.
During the modifications theyincreased power to the boilers
to add speed, they movedequipment on top of the ship to
(18:16):
reduce the draft and they addeda bunch of staterooms to
eventually carry close to 3,000passengers.
All of which greatly affectedthe metacentric height of the
ship and fucked up the stability.
As originally designed, thismetacentric height is critical
(18:36):
to a boat's stability.
Boats, or really any floatingobjects, are like an upside-down
pendulum with a center ofgravity and the ability to roll
or heel to either side beforerighting itself.
The distance between fullyupright and the maximum heel,
which is the point beyond whichit will capsize, is its
(18:59):
metacentric height.
The higher the height, thebetter.
That means it'll take longer tohit that point of no return.
This metacentric height for theEastland should have been
between two to four feet.
It was not.
It was much lower, with someestimates putting it around four
inches at the time of thedisaster.
(19:28):
After this first round ofmodifications it was faster,
beating other boats and racesits second year in service,
earning it the Speed Queen title.
But that came with the cost ofmajor instability.
There was two near-listingincidents in the following year
that led them to removing someof the staterooms and reducing
the passenger capacity to 2,500.
But the problem remained.
(19:49):
And during all of this the boatwas passing yearly government
inspections.
While the inspectors wouldthrow up red flags about the
issues, there was never anyfollow-through, and this is
purely my speculation, but giventhat notoriously corrupt
Chicago was involved, I'm gonnaassume money was changing hands
(20:12):
to make those red flagsdisappear.
The sinking of the Titanic in1912 only made the problems with
the ship worse.
In 1915, the Seaman's Act waspassed.
This required all boats tocarry enough light boats to take
every passenger.
The Eastland was designed tocarry only six boats.
(20:34):
Originally, on the day of thecapsizing it carried 11, along
with 37 life rafts.
This made an already top-heavyboat worse and severely degraded
its stability.
Adding to all this, nothing wasever done to upgrade or fix the
blast tanks and pumps, so ithad no chance of keeping up with
(20:59):
the increased demands.
No chance of keeping up withthe increased demands.
And on top of all this, whenthe ship was bought in 1914 by
the St Joseph and ChicagoSteamboat Company, they decided
to rip out some of the hardwoodflooring and replace it with two
inches of concrete.
The total amount of concreteadded increased the weight of
(21:19):
the ship nearly 20 tons, and Icannot figure out why anyone
would think this was a good ideaTo passenger ship.
Why the fuck would you replacehardwood flooring with concrete?
Anyways, this boat was destinedto fail.
You can't keep adding weight ontop of something without
(21:41):
supporting it from the bottom.
It's going to fall overeventually, and that was the SS
Eastland disaster, a tragedythat was quickly overshadowed in
the following years as thecountry entered World War.
I Thanks for listening followingyears as the country entered
(22:04):
World War.
I Thanks for listening and ifyou liked the show, please
consider leaving a rating orreview on your Apple choice, and
you can reach out to the showat historiesofdisaster at
gmailcom with questions,comments or suggestions, as well
as following the show on socialmedia like Facebook, instagram,
Tumblr and a few others TikTok,youtube, whatever and share the
(22:26):
episode.
Your friends will love it.
Take care of yourself out there.
Chase that dream, live fortoday, because tomorrow is never
guaranteed.
Thanks and goodbye.
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