SS Eastland
passenger ship that rolled over in Chicago in 1915
SS Eastland was an American Great Lakes passenger ship. On July 24, 1915, the ship capsized while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. In total, 844 passengers and crew were killed in what is, as of 2026, the largest loss of life from a shipwreck on the Great Lakes and the Chicago area.
After the disaster, Eastland was salvaged and sold to the United States Navy. After restorations and modifications, Eastland was designated a gunboat and renamed USS Wilmette. She was used primarily as a training vessel on the Great Lakes, and was scrapped after World War II.
Construction
The ship was ordered in October 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan. The ship was originally meant to be named The City of South Haven, but a rival company, the Dunkley Williams Transportation Company, built a ship with the same name. A brief construction contest was held to determine who could use the name The City of South Haven. Dunkley Williams ultimately won. As a result, the Michigan Steamship Company held another contest, asking anyone to submit a name for the ship.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “SS Eastland” as passenger ship that rolled over in Chicago in 1915. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as passenger ship that rolled over in Chicago in 1915. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1278272. Authority coordinates are 41.887, -87.632. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1915, 2026 and 1902.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “SS Eastland”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow SS Eastland primary sources, SS Eastland archive and Eastland research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “SS Eastland”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “SS Eastland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.