Last Saturday, was the 95th memorial for the anniversary for the Eastland Disaster.  On July 24th, 1915, 844 people perished when the Eastland ship turned over into the Chicago River.  The boat was set to travel across Lake Michigan to Indiana for a picnic.   The people that perished were employees of the Western Electric Company along with many of their family and friends.  More passengers died during this disaster than had died during the sinking of the Titanic.  Unfortunately the incident is not rembered as well.  I highly suggest visiting the Eastland Disaster Historical Society website at www.eastlandisaster.org for all sorts of information regarding this tragic event.

The memorial was held right where the incident took place at the riverwalk between the LaSalle & Clark Street bridges.  The head of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society  gave a short, touching speech about the disaster .  Followed by that,  a spokesperson from the Red Cross (who played an integral part in the rescue effort 95 years ago) gave a speech as well.  To end, there was a moment of silence while the coast guard layed of a wreath down in the Chicago River.   Displayed here are a couple of pictures from the memorial.

God Bless those 844 sould aboard the Eastland that one fateful day.

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This entry was posted by kevin on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.