page_title: Chicago River
section_title: Eastland disaster
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago River / History / Eastland disaster
caption_attribution_description: English: Eastland disaster, the Kenosha, a tugboat, rescuing survivors from the hull of the overturned steamer Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED [ca. 1915 July 24] SUMMARY Image of the Kenosha, a tugboat, rescuing survivors from the hull of the overturned Eastland steamer in the Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois. NOTES Images related to this photonegative taken by a Chicago Daily News photographer were published in the newspaper between July 24-August 13, 1915. Cite as: DN-0064936, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.
context_page_description: The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center. Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chicago Portage is a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico.
  The River is also noteworthy for its natural and human-engineered history. In 1887, the Illinois General Assembly decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering by taking water from Lake Michigan and discharging it into the Mississippi River watershed, partly in response to concerns created by an extreme weather event in 1885 that threatened the city's water supply. In 1889, the Illinois General Assembly created the Chicago Sanitary District to replace the Illinois and Michigan Canal with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a much larger waterway, because the former had become inadequate to serve the city's increasing sewage and commercial navigation needs.
context_section_description: In 1915, the SS Eastland, an excursion boat docked at the Clark Street bridge, rolled over, killing 844 passengers. Many of the passengers were trapped by moving objects such as pianos and tables. The site is now the location of a memorial dedicated in 1989. The marker was stolen in 2000 and replaced in 2003. There are plans to build an outdoor exhibit at the site as well.
caption: Passengers being rescued from the hull of the Eastland by the tugboat Kenosha in the Chicago River
exif: {}