This year marks the 100th anniversary of the EASTLAND disaster. The steamer EASTLAND capsized in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. More than 800 people were killed, most within a few feet of shore. It was one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history.

The Great Lakes Towing Company Tug INDIANA responded to the EASTLAND disaster and The Company’s Salvage Vessel FAVORITE was used to raise the EASTLAND.

From MLive:

In Feb. 2015, a pair of sharp-eyed Illinois college students, working independent of one another, turned up the first known video footage of the infamous disaster just months prior to the incident’s 100-year anniversary.

Jeff Nichols, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Alex Revzan, recent master’s graduate at the Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Ill., each found separate film clips in different European archives last month.

According to the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, the clips represent the first known footage from the July 24, 1915 disaster, in which a steamship carrying 2,500 on the way to a company picnic capsized at the dock on the Chicago River downtown, killing 844 people.

Photos

Source: MLive/AP Photo/File

Videos

• Nichols’ first clip (Eastland footage starts at 1 minute, 10 second mark)
• Nichols’ second clip (Eastland footage starts at 9 minute, 10 second mark)
• Revzan clip (Warning: footage contains images of bodies)

Source: MLive