History's A Disaster
Bloody history and bloodier crimes. Andrew takes a weekly look at all things bloody. From natural disasters to man made atrocities
History's A Disaster
Sinking of the SS Eastland: Tragedy at the Dock
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/
Can we go back to the days companies took care of their people and did shit like taking 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 my wife does all that planning shit? I just get in the car, find out when we get there. Anyways, hopefully I'm out on the boat somewhere and not in the middle of a repeat of the SS Eastland. They didn't even get a chance to leave the dock before the boat capsized and claimed the lives of 844 passengers. So what happened? I'm Andrew and this is History's A Disaster. Tonight we are taking a dive into the SS Eastland sinking way back in 1915. And I have got to stop saying taking a dive. It's got some pretty negative connotations here. And tonight's episode is brought to you by Big Boy Bob's Buffet. Are you tired of being skinny? Then come on down to Big Boy Bob's Buffet, where you can eat until you're stuffed and falling over for only $4.99, drink included, as long as it's water.
Speaker 1:Saturday July 24th 1915 started out as a warm, overcast day. Excitement filled the air as the large crowd started to form at the Clark Street Bridge on the south bank of the Chicago River. It was just after 6 am and nearly 5,000 people were on hand, all hoping to get there early enough to get a good seat on one of the three boats. They were all employees and their families of the Western Electric Company, and today was the company's picnic, with round-trip fare on the boats being a dollar for adults and 50 cents for kids. Over 7,000 tickets were sold. It was the largest turnout for the annual picnic yet and they were all dressed in their best outfits. The single men were hoping to attract the eye of the fairer sex. Kids ran around or were carried by their moms as dad lugged about their baggage.
Speaker 1:By 6.30, the loading began. Attendants using clickers to count the passengers as they loaded onto the first available ship, the Eastland. Nearly 50 people a minute walked across the 8-foot-long gangplank to anxiously get aboard. The boat started to dip down nearly a foot under the weight. The engineers worked the pumps to right the ship, but as more passengers boarded, the ship began to list again in the other direction. They got it straightened out again, just for it to tilt the other way. They tried to shuffle the passengers around to redistribute the weight, but many did not comply. The boat was quickly past its max capacity of 2,500 passengers. Inside the ship, the younger passengers on the slick dance floor laughed and made the best of the ship tilting, laughing and sliding along the floor as they made preparations to leave.
Speaker 1:The stern lines were released. The rear end swung free out into the river, unknown to everyone but a tugboat operator. The forward lines, still holding the Eastland by the nose to the dock, were pulled tight. The nose to the dock or pulled tight. They were under immense tension as they held the Eastland upright and tied to the dock. The boat continued to lift the starboard. People slid across the floor, plates and bottles fell from shelves. Some tried to evacuate by any means, opting to go over the rail and into the chilly Chicago River. Others jumped and grabbed onto ropes and climbed hand over hand back to the docks. As it dipped further and further into the river, the water rushed into the open gangway and any hole it could find, dragging the boat down quicker. The bow lines pulled on the massive timbers of the dock, pulling one loose. Other lines snapped in half. The boat was now free from the dock and free to capsize.
Speaker 1:As the boat hit a 45 degree tilt, the screams started. Panic set in as passengers on the port side slid towards the railing, the only protection from dropping into the river. That was getting closer and closer. As the boat tilted and was dragged onto its side, the piano on the promenade deck slides and barely avoids knocking over two fleeing women. The refrigerator in the bar crashes down, pinning a passenger beneath it. A soda fountain broke loose and smashed into a crowd, crushing those beneath it. Fleeing passengers on the main deck 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 river or the wharf. The Eastland finally settles on its side in the mud and 20 feet of water of the Chicago River.
Speaker 1:Survival had come down to pure dumb luck of being in the right place. As the boat tilted over, many became trapped inside the ship. As the walls became the floors and ceilings, water filled the interior, quickly blocking exits and trapping more passengers. Some could only look helplessly out the starboard portholes above their heads as they clung desperately to anything they could find to stay above the waterline.
Speaker 1:Rescue efforts began almost immediately. Nearby tugboats swung in to help pull people, both living and dead, from the river. Others nearby dove into the river to help. Henry Scalier, a local cop, would be one of the first ones on the water. He grabbed a nearby rowboat and would go on to pull over 50 people out of the water. The tugboats and fireboats would pull over a hundred other survivors from the river. Peter Boyle, who was a lookout on a nearby steamer, the Petulski, left from a lightboat that was being lowered into the water. He was making a desperate attempt to save a drowning woman. During his attempt they were both pulled under the water and never resurfaced.
Speaker 1:William Gowdy, a 46-year-old swimming coach at the Illinois Athletic Club, was on the docks during the accident. He dove in and helped rescue several people. While attempting to rescue a woman beneath the ship, he got caught up in some ropes and drowned. Lynn, the assistant harbor master, made several desperate phone calls to boat companies in the area. They needed someone to come out to cut holes in the sides of the ship. The only chance those still trapped inside had was to come out the portholes and they needed to be cut out. Otz welders were soon on scene and began cutting holes in the ship. Ropes were lowered through the holes and more survivors were pulled from the ship. They were quickly held down the slick side to waiting boats and taken ashore for treatment by the waiting doctors and nurses.
Speaker 1:This scene was complete chaos and shocking even to experienced medical personnel showing up to help. People were struggling in the water, clustered so thickly that they literally covered the surface of the river. A few were swimming, the rest were floundering about, some clinging to a life raft that had floated free, others clutching at anything they could reach and bits of wood, each other grabbing each other, pulling each other down and screaming. Screams filled the air. Rescuers were pulling survivors out from below decks, out of the water and out through the portholes. People were being dragged out, wet, bleeding and hysterical. Most of those from the decks and the inside of the boat were cut up, some worse than others from the chairs and benches and other debris that had slid down on top of them. When the boat went over.
Speaker 1:Within an hour of the sinking, the Iroquois Memorial Hospital and other area hospitals were being overwhelmed with injured. Ambulances raced across the city to reach hospitals. Further out, thousands of people filled and choked the streets. Trucks and ambulances and horse-drawn carts had to fight through the crowd to reach the river. Red Cross doctors worked through the injured, injecting them with strychnine in an attempt to revive them. And yes, they used what is now mostly in rat poison and pesticides as a stimulant. So next time your buddy's drowning, just feed him some rat poison to wake him up. But this was successful in at least one attempt to revive someone.
Speaker 1:What few nurses had first arrived did what they could for first aid but were overwhelmed by the sheer number of injuries. By the end of the day their white nurses' uniforms would be stained with blood and mud. The hospitals were overcrowded and in dire need, more and more injured straggled in wet and shivering in the cold, and they were quickly out of blankets. One of the nurses at Iroquois Memorial put in a call to Marshall Fields and ordered 500 blankets, and of course the bill should go to Western Electric Company. Another nurse called area restaurants for all the hot soup and coffee they could send over. The hospital was beyond capacity and they had nowhere for the less seriously injured. Fortunately, some men from a nearby building offered to take some of them in and take care of them. Others were taken care of quickly and sent home to be with family. Care of quickly and sent home to be with family. To this end. One nurse would flag down every vehicle she saw and loaded up with survivors to send home. Not a single driver refused or hesitated to help. Everyone in the area was coming together to get help.
Speaker 1:By 9 am, the rescue effort turned into a recovery operation, one that was being slowed down as the weather turned to shit. Body after body was pulled from the hold of the ship as the rain poured down. Doctors and nurses on scene could not keep up with the amount of people being pulled from the ship. Bodies were everywhere, lining the dock, the sidewalks and bridges. The growing crowd of people pressed in, making medical personnel's job nearly impossible. They kept getting in the way of their efforts. A cop on scene was able to secure the use of a nearby warehouse and they began to move the bodies there. Out of the hundreds of bodies moved into the warehouse, and they began to move the bodies there. Out of the hundreds of bodies moved into the warehouse, they were only able to revive four of them. As the morning dragged on, the crowd got bigger, filling with family members desperate to find their loved ones. Uninjured survivors, dazed and still in shock, wandered aimlessly through the crowd. By noon, rescuers had reached the inner cabins of the ship. Nearly every body that came out was either a woman or a child. Right before the ship capsized, a light rain had started and mothers had taken their kids inside out of the weather and became trapped there.
Speaker 1:During the tragedy, recovery efforts would keep going on into the following days. Healing, both physically and mentally, would take much longer. As families searched for their loved ones, some others who had entered the 2nd Regiment Armory, which was now being used as a morgue, was caught stealing jewelry, watches and money from the dead. For several days, volunteers led small groups up and down rows looking for birthmarks, scars, clothing, watches, anything to help identify the dead. When this happened, the volunteer would shout identified and then a pair of stretcher-carrying volunteers would bring the body to a table where a proper death certificate could be registered. Unfortunately, there would be a lot of misidentification, which would just cause more grief for all the families involved.
Speaker 1:As the identifications continued through the week, one little boy had remained unclaimed. The officers and ward workers nicknamed him Littlefeller. His body would eventually be brought to a West Madison neighborhood where a friend recognized him as Willie Novotny. His grandmother confirmed this by sending an extra pair of pants to see if they matched the ones he wore. She just could not bring herself to go down to make the ID in person. Sadly, willie's parents, james and Agnes, along with his nine-year-old sister, mimi, had died with him. More than 5,000 people attended his funeral on July 31st and his funeral procession would stretch over a mile.
Speaker 1:Western Electric spent $100,000 to set up a relief fund for the victims, as well as starting a fundraiser that brought in another $475,000. That's roughly $3,450,000. $15 million adjusted to today's money. They would also cover all funeral and burial costs. 52 gravediggers worked around the clock in preparation for all the funerals. July 28th would be a busy day with 700 of them. The packed funeral homes did not have enough hearses, so Marshall Fields loaned them 39 trucks to assist.
Speaker 1:In total, 844 people died in the wreck just 20 feet from shore. 70% of the victims had been under the age of 25, and the majority of them were women and children. 286 had been teenagers or younger women and children. 286 had been teenagers or younger. 40 children had been orphaned as both parents had died, and 22 entire families had been wiped out. An investigation was launched into the causes just days after the tragedy. Criminal charges would be filed against the owners and Captain Peterson and Chief Engineer Joseph Erickson. No one would be indicted and face any repercussions for the tragedy, and they would eventually fix up the Eastland, slap a new coat of paint on it and some guns and rename it the SS Wilmot. It was mostly used as a training boat on the Great Lakes for the Navy. It would eventually be decommissioned and scrapped in 1947 after the war ended. Okay, so why did this happen? Well, boat was fucked up from the start and they just kept making things worse.
Speaker 1:The SS Eastland, nicknamed the Speed Queen of the Great Lakes, started out life in 1902, being commissioned by the Michigan Steamboat Company and built in Port Huron, michigan, by the Jenks Shipbuilding Company, and was completed by May of 1903. And there was problems from the start. In July of that year, while it would take only minor damage, it hit and sunk a tugboat that was tied up. In August they had a small mutiny. Six firemen refused to stoke the fire in the ship's boiler because they didn't get their potatoes at dinner. And you know what I get it Potatoes are awesome. I'd have been pissed too. Maybe not let me risk my job, pissed, but pissed nonetheless. They would end up getting held at gunpoint until they made it to shore and arrested for mutiny all over some damn potatoes.
Speaker 1:And when the ship was originally built it was made to carry 500 passengers out onto the lake and then transport produce to Chicago. It was built without a keel and relied on some shitty ballast tanks to keep it stable and it was kind of slow and its depth was too deep, so it had trouble going up and down the Black River. You know what the Michigan Steamboat Company didn't like that shit at all. You know what the Michigan Steamboat Company didn't like that shit at all. So after its first year on the lake, they sent it back to Port Huron for modification. During the modifications they increased power to the boilers to add speed, they moved equipment on top of the ship to reduce the draft and they added a bunch of staterooms to eventually carry close to 3,000 passengers. All of which greatly affected the metacentric height of the ship and fucked up the stability.
Speaker 1:As originally designed, this metacentric height is critical to a boat's stability. Boats, or really any floating objects, are like an upside-down pendulum with a center of gravity and the ability to roll or heel to either side before righting itself. The distance between fully upright and the maximum heel, which is the point beyond which it will capsize, is its metacentric height. The higher the height, the better. That means it'll take longer to hit that point of no return. This metacentric height for the Eastland should have been between two to four feet. It was not. It was much lower, with some estimates putting it around four inches at the time of the disaster.
Speaker 1:After this first round of modifications it was faster, beating other boats and races its second year in service, earning it the Speed Queen title. But that came with the cost of major instability. There was two near-listing incidents in the following year that led them to removing some of the staterooms and reducing the passenger capacity to 2,500. But the problem remained. And during all of this the boat was passing yearly government inspections. While the inspectors would throw up red flags about the issues, there was never any follow-through, and this is purely my speculation, but given that notoriously corrupt Chicago was involved, I'm gonna assume money was changing hands to make those red flags disappear.
Speaker 1:The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 only made the problems with the ship worse. In 1915, the Seaman's Act was passed. This required all boats to carry enough light boats to take every passenger. The Eastland was designed to carry only six boats. Originally, on the day of the capsizing it carried 11, along with 37 life rafts.
Speaker 1:This made an already top-heavy boat worse and severely degraded its stability. Adding to all this, nothing was ever done to upgrade or fix the blast tanks and pumps, so it had no chance of keeping up with the increased demands. No chance of keeping up with the increased demands. And on top of all this, when the ship was bought in 1914 by the St Joseph and Chicago Steamboat Company, they decided to rip out some of the hardwood flooring and replace it with two inches of concrete. The total amount of concrete added increased the weight of the ship nearly 20 tons, and I cannot figure out why anyone would think this was a good idea To passenger ship. Why the fuck would you replace hardwood flooring with concrete? Anyways, this boat was destined to fail. You can't keep adding weight on top of something without supporting it from the bottom. It's going to fall over eventually, and that was the SS Eastland disaster, a tragedy that was quickly overshadowed in the following years as the country entered World War.
Speaker 1:I Thanks for listening following years as the country entered World War. I Thanks for listening and if you liked the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your Apple choice, and you can reach out to the show at historiesofdisaster at gmailcom with questions, comments or suggestions, as well as following the show on social media like Facebook, instagram, Tumblr and a few others TikTok, youtube, whatever and share the episode. Your friends will love it. Take care of yourself out there. Chase that dream, live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye.