SS Eastland
- This article is about the ship, for other uses see Eastland (disambiguation).
The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. The ship was commissioned in 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company. In April, 1903, the ship was named by Mrs. David Reid of South Haven, Michigan. She received a prize of $10 and a one-season pass on the ship. The ship was christened in May, immediately before its inaugural voyage.
Early problems
In July, a case of overcrowding caused the Eastland to list and water to flow up one of its gangplanks. The situation was quickly rectified, but was only the first of many incidents. Later in the month, the stern of the ship was damaged when it backed into the tugboat George W. Gardner. August of 1906 would see another incident of listing, that resulted in the filing of complaints against the Chicago-South Haven Line, which had purchased the ship in Spring of that year.
Mutiny on the Eastland
On August 14, 1903, while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven, the ship's firemen refused to stoke the fire, claiming that they hadn't received their potatoes for a meal. When they refused to return to the fire hole, Captain John Pereue ordered the six men arrested at gun point. Upon arrival in South Haven, the six men, Glenn Watson, Mike Davern, Frank La Plarte, Edward Fleming, Mike Smith, and William Madden, were taken to the town jail. Two other firemen, George Lippen and Benjamin Myers, stoked the fires until the ship reached harbor. Shortly after the mutiny, Pereue was replaced.
The Eastland Disaster
In June of 1914, the Eastland was again sold, this time to the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company. Captain Harry Pedersen was hired to man the vessel.
In 1915, the new federal Seaman's Act, passed because of the RMS Titanic disaster, required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats. Although the lifeboats mandated by this act were said to have the potential to capsize Great Lakes boats, it was signed into law anyway by President Woodrow Wilson. The Eastland was already so top-heavy that she sailed with restrictions, and the additional weight of the lifeboats made her even more unstable than before.
On July 24, 1915, the Eastland and two other cruise ships, the Theodore Roosevelt and the Petoskey, were hired to take employees from Chicago's Western Electric Company to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. Passengers began boarding around 6:30 AM. By 7:10, the ship had reached its capacity of 2,500 passengers. It had also developed a list to the port, which the crew attempted to stabilize by admitting water to the ballast tanks. By 7:28, the Eastland began to roll over, coming to rest on its side in 20 feet of water only 20 feet from the wharf, on the south bank of the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets. The Kenosha came alongside the hull to allow some passengers to leap to safety. 841 passengers and 4 crew died in the disaster. Many of the passengers on the Eastland were Czech ("Bohemian") immigrants from Cicero, Illinois.
It was a relatively damp day, and many of the passengers (including many young women and mothers with children) had moved inside the ship to take cover from the elements. Many of these passengers were trapped inside by the water and the sudden rollover; others were crushed by heavy furniture, including pianos, bookcases, and tables.
Writer Jack Woodford witnessed the disaster and gave a first-hand account to the Chicago newspaper Herald and Examiner. In his autobiography, Woodford writes:
- "And then movement caught my eye. I looked across the river. As I watched in disoriented stupefaction a steamer large as an ocean liner slowly turned over on its side as though it were a whale going to take a nap. I didn't believe a huge steamer had done this before my eyes, lashed to a dock, in perfectly calm water, in excellent weather, with no explosion, no fire, nothing. I thought I had gone crazy."
Many of the bodies were taken to a cold storage warehouse in the vicinity, which has since been transformed into Harpo Studios, the soundstage of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
One of the people who was scheduled to be on the Eastland was a twenty-year old George Halas. Despite stories to the contrary, there is no reliable evidence that Jack Benny was on board the Eastland or scheduled to be on the excursion.
Second life as the U.S.S. Wilmette
After the Eastland was raised in October 1915, she was sold to the Illinois Naval Reserve and recommissioned as the USS Wilmette stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base. She was converted to a gunboat, renamed Wilmette on 20 February 1918, and commissioned on 20 September 1918 with Capt. William B. Wells in command. Commissioned late in World War I, Wilmette saw no combat service. She trained sailors and engaged in normal upkeep and repairs until placed in ordinary at Chicago on 9 July 1919, retaining a 10-man caretaker crew on board. On 29 June 1920 the gunboat was returned to full commission, Capt. Edward A. Evers, USNRF, in command.
On June 7, 1921, the Wilmette was given the task of sinking the UC-97, a German U-Boat captured during World War I. The guns of the Wilmette were manned by Gunner's Mate J.O. Sabin, who had fired the first American shell in World War I, and Gunner's Mate A.F. Anderson, the man who fired the first American torpedo in the conflict. For the remainder of her 25-year career, the gunboat served as a training ship for naval reservists in the 9th, 10th, and 11th Naval Districts. She made voyages along the shores of the Great Lakes carrying trainees assigned to her from the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. Wilmette remained in commission, carrying out her reserve training mission until she was placed "out of commission, in service," on 15 February 1940.
Designated IX-29 on 17 February 1941, she resumed training duty at Chicago on 30 March 1942, preparing armed guard crews for duty manning the guns on armed merchantmen. That assignment continued until the end of World War II in Europe obviated measures to protect transatlantic merchant shipping from German U-boats. On 9 April 1945, she was returned to full commission for a brief interval. Wilmette was decommissioned on 28 November 1945, and her name was struck from the Navy list on 19 December 1945. In 1946, the Wilmette was offered up for sale. Finding no takers, on 31 October 1946, she was sold to the Hyman Michaels Co. for scrapping. She was demolished in 1947.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
External links
- Maritimequest Eastland Photo Gallery
- Eastland Memorial Society
- Eastland Disaster at the Center for History
- Eastland Disaster Historical Society
- Graves of Eastland victims at Bohemian National Cemetery
- Graves of Eastland victims at Concordia Cemetery
Further reading
Jay Bonansinga, The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy, Citadel Press 2004. ISBN 0-8065-2628-9