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