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Lucky survivors managed to climb onto the hull of the ship, while others were pulled from the river by rescuers in boats and even by onlookers who jumped into the water to save the floundering passengers. Some were killed by the thick smoke that filled the ship when some of its machinery exploded. Many more were trapped below, where they drowned. Many passengers were pitched into the Chicago River, where, encumbered by suits and long dresses, they were pulled below the water. Before the eyes of hundreds of horrified spectators on nearby streets and docks, the Eastland slowly rolled over onto its port side. The ship continued to list dangerously to port.
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Passengers below deck began climbing out of gangways and windows on the starboard side as the ship continued to lean toward port. Water continued to enter the ship from below. The crew began to worry and started to move some of the passengers to the starboard side. The gangplank had been removed from the overcrowded ship, which now held more than 2,500 passengers. Water began entering the Eastland on the lower port side. The ship continued to sway back and forth, some of the passengers joking about it as loose objects slid along the deck. Only 1 minute later, the ship began to list starboard, toward the docks.Īs more passengers crowded onboard, the Eastland began to list to the port side, where many people had congregated to watch the other ships boarding. Saturday, July 24, 1915, dawned as a partly cloudy day in Chicago. The Eastland was one of the newer ships gathered at the docks that day. Rumors had circulated among the steamship lines that the Eastland was top-heavy and less than stable, but those thoughts were disregarded as passengers began to stream aboard at 6:40 a.m. And it could be that the ghosts of the Eastland roam even farther into the city. Witnesses have seen faces peering up at them from the watery depths of the river and have heard unexplainable screams and cries emanating from it. Today, these unfortunate victims haunt the stretch of the Chicago River between the Clark and La Salle Street bridges. The disaster occurred in water no more than 20 feet deep and only a few feet away from dry land. No, there was nothing dramatic in the death of the steamer Eastland except that it slowly rolled onto its side on the Chicago River, in the heart of that city, in plain view of thousands of people, killing at least 844 passengers and wiping out 22 entire families. history did not occur on the storm-tossed seas of the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, nor was it the result of monstrous icebergs, killer storms, or enemy torpedoes. One of the most tragic maritime disasters in U.S. In today’s post, John Kachuba, author of Ghosthunting Illinois, tells us about the 1915 sinking of the Eastland in the Chicago River.