Chicago's Eastland Disaster-- Part 3: Comparing the Disasters

It was July 15, 1915, and the time for the fifth annual employee picnic for the workers at Chicago's huge Western Electric plant.

Five ships had been hired to take the people to Michigan City.    One of the five was the ship heralded as the "Speed Queen of the Great Lakes," the SS Eastland.

Twenty-two entire families died in the tragedy.

And now, that tragedy has been largely forgotten.  Not all tragedies in Chicago have been though.  Most everyone knows about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, you know, the one supposedly started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow.  Somewhere between 300-400 died in it.

Then there was the Chicago Iroquois Theater fire in 1903, which killed 606.  People remember that.

Another disaster most people know is the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, especially thanks to Gordon Lightfoot's song about it.  Twenty-nine died in that one.

Somewhat forgotten, though, is the wreck of the ship Lady Elgin in Lake Michigan in which 279 perished.