Eastland
The SS Eastland docked
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| History | |
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| Name: | Eastland |
| Owner: | Michigan Steamship Company |
| Route: | South Haven, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois |
| Ordered: | October 1902 |
| Builder: | Jenks Ship Building Company |
| Launched: | May 6, 1903 |
| Christened: | May 1903 by Francis Elizabeth Stufflebeam |
| Maiden voyage: | July 16, 1903 |
| Nickname(s): | "Speed queen of the Great Lakes" |
| Fate: | Sold during 1905 to the Michigan Transportation Company |
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| Name: | Eastland |
| Owner: | Michigan Transportation Company |
| Operator: | Chicago-South Haven Line |
| Route: | South Haven – Chicago route |
| Fate: | Sold August 5, 1906, to the Lake Shore Navigation Company of Cleveland, Ohio |
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| Name: | Eastland |
| Owner: | Lake Shore Navigation Company of Cleveland, Ohio |
| Route: | Cleveland-Cedar Point route |
| Fate: | Sold during 1909 to the Eastland Navigation Company of Cleveland, Ohio |
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| Name: | Eastland |
| Owner: | Eastland Navigation Company of Cleveland, Ohio |
| Route: | Cleveland-Cedar Point route |
| Fate: | Sold on June 1, 1914 to the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company of St. Joseph, Michigan. |
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| Name: | Eastland |
| Owner: | St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company of St. Joseph, Michigan |
| Route: | St. Joseph, Michigan, to Chicago route |
| Fate: | Raised after accident on October 1915 and sold at auction on December 20, 1915 to Captain Edward A. Evers, sold on November 21, 1917 to the Illinois Naval Reserve. |
 United States
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| Name: | USS Wilmette |
| Acquired: | November 21, 1917 |
| Commissioned: | September 20, 1918 |
| Recommissioned: |
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| Decommissioned: |
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| Renamed: | Wilmette on February 20, 1918 |
| Reclassified: |
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| Struck: | December 19, 1945 |
| Honors and awards: |
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| Fate: | Sold for scrap on October 31, 1946 to Hyman Michaels Company of Chicago and scrapped, scrapping completed in 1947 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Passenger Ship |
| Type: | Steamship |
| Tonnage: | 1,961 gross |
| Displacement: | 2,600 (estimated) |
| Length: | 265 ft |
| Beam: | 38 ft 2 in |
| Draft: | 19 ft 6 in |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | Two shafts |
| Speed: | 16.5 knots |
| Capacity: | As Eastland: 2,752 passengers |
| Complement: | As USS Wilmette: 209 |
| Armament: |
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| Notes: |
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The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915, the ship rolled over onto its side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
After the disaster, the Eastland was salvaged and sold to the United States Navy. After restorations and modifications, the Eastland was designated as a gunboat and renamed the USS Wilmette. It was used primarily as a training vessel on the Great Lakes, and was scrapped after World War II.
The ship was commissioned during 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan. The ship was named during May 1903, immediately before its inaugural voyage.
After its construction, the Eastland was discovered to have design flaws, making it susceptible to listing. The ship was top-heavy, which became evident when passengers congregated en masse on the upper decks. During July 1903, a case of overcrowding caused the Eastland to list with water flowing up one of the ship's gangplanks. The situation was quickly rectified, but this was the first of several incidents. Later in the same month, the stern of the ship was damaged when it was backed into the tugboat George W. Gardner. During August 1906, another incident of listing occurred which resulted in the filing of complaints against the Chicago-South Haven Line which had purchased the ship earlier that year.
On August 14, 1903, while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven, Michigan, six of the ship's firemen refused to stoke the fire for the ship's boiler. They claimed that they had not 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. Firemen George Lippen and Benjamin Myers, who were not a part of the group of six, stoked the fires until the ship reached harbor. Upon the ship's 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 and charged with mutiny. Shortly thereafter, Captain Pereue was replaced.
On July 24, 1915, Eastland and four other Great Lakes passenger steamers, Theodore Roosevelt, Petoskey, Racine, and Rochester, were chartered to take employees from Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. This was a major event in the lives of the workers, many of whom could not take holidays. Many of the passengers on the Eastland were Czech immigrants from Cicero; 220 of them perished.
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Wikipedia