In 1860, the sidepaddle steamer Lady Elgin was wrecked about nine miles off Winnetka – another ship had collided with it, and the ship was busted up by breakers. Just under 400 people were on board, bound to Milwaukee from Chicago, allegedly after having seen Senator Douglas speaking in his campaign for the presidency (though the…
Tag: eastland
Rarely-Seen Eastland Disaster Photos on the 100th Anniversary
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster, in which 844 people lost their lives when a badly oversold boat capsized in the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle. It’s been a big year for finding new footage of the disaster; film footage was found in Dutch newsreels, followed closely by more graphic footage in…
Heroic and Tragic Tales of Eastland Divers
Diver portrait from the Chicago American Early on in my time as a Chicago ghost tour guide, I heard a story that one of the divers recovering bodies from the Eastland had gone insane and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. I repeated it on a few early tours, but, unable…
Eastland Disaster Premonitions
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Eastland disaster of 1915; we’re featuring posts on it all week Even with my general skepticism about paranormal stories, one belief – or half belief- that’s stayed with me is the idea that when people are about to die, a part of them knows it. Think of…
Some Eastland Editorial Cartoons, 1915
In the wake of the Eastland disaster, a hundred years ago this week, lots of fingers were pointed, though nothing ever really came of the hearings and investigations. No one was ever really held responsible, though making the guilty pay was a major theme from editorial cartoons of the day. Here are some examples from the…
Mistaken Identities at the Eastland Morgues
Workers set up arc lights to continue searching for bodies on the night of July 24, 1915, when the Eastland capsized.From the Chicago Examiner of July 25, 1915 From the Chicago Journal of 7/26/1915.We’ll be posting many photos from defunct papers on Friday. This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Eastland disaster, in which a badly-oversold boat…
More Eastland Footage
A Springfield, IL theatre ad from July 31, just a week afterthe disaster. I’m endlessly fascinated with how theatresoften showed footage on the bill with Chaplin films.The Mutual Co. version was apparently not consideredby the Chicago censors. More Eastland Disaster footage has been found in a Pathe newsreel digitized by a British firm. This is…
Eastland Disaster Film Footage Discovered
It’s actually part of my usual tour patter to say that we’re still looking for film footage of the Eastland disaster. Lots of film footage is known to have bee shot and exhibited, but like most of the hundreds of silent films made in Chicago in 1915, it was now lost. “New copies of old films…