10. Passengers sank the excursion ship Eastland as it was moored to its pier in Chicago
In July 1915, Eastland was one of five lake steamers chartered to carry employees of Western Electric’s Hawthorne Plant on a company-sponsored excursion. Eastland was a poorly designed ship, top heavy and prone to listing, and the changes mandated by the Titanic disaster regarding sufficient lifeboats made the vessel more so, since the additional boats were stored on the upper decks. On July 24, Eastland took aboard over 2,500 passengers, and when many of them crowded along the port side of the ship, on the upper deck, it began to lean away from the pier. As even more crowded to the port side, eager to see the view, the ship heeled over on its side and sank to the bottom of the Chicago River.
The water was only about 20 feet deep, with the starboard side breaking the surface, but most of the passengers below the decks were trapped as the vessel flooded. Many others were killed by furniture and equipment which broke loose when the ship rolled. Among the initial list of the dead was George Halas, later owner of the Chicago Bears, who had been scheduled to be aboard but was late arriving. When he wasn’t located during a muster of the survivors he was assumed to be trapped aboard. Eight hundred and forty-four passengers and crew weren’t as lucky. Eastland was later raised, modified, and served in the US Navy as USS Wilmette in both world wars.
