Employees gathered early on the south side of the Chicago River near the Clark Street Bridge. Workers, spouses and children found they had a choice of six ships: the Theodore Roosevelt, the Petoskey, the Maywood, the Racine, the Rochester. And the Eastland--the clear favorite.

The steamship Eastland on the Chicago River.

Built of steel and four decks high, the ship's nickname was "Speed Queen of the Lakes." Its 22-mile-an-hour slice through water was due to its unusually narrow width of 36 feet. Sure, there had been rumors of its instability, but there had been that dare offered by one of the ship's owners: a $5,000 reward for the man who could prove that the Eastland was unsafe. No one took the bait.

Besides, the federal government had just that very summer inspected the 2,500-passenger ship and determined it to be safe.

By 6:30 a.m. about 5,000 people were already on the docks. As the Eastland's gangplank was lowered at 6:40 a.m., people rushed into the ship. One minute later, the Eastland began to lean.

As the crew frantically tried to adjust the ballasts, there was no worry among passengers. The women, garbed in ankle-length dresses and knee-high boots, were more concerned with a light rain, and they scurried to shelter in the ship's inner cabins.

Those remaining topside laughed at the ship's unstableness. A Chicago fire boat went by, blew its whistle, and folks rushed over to see it, unbalancing it further. Chairs, picnic baskets and bottles began to slide across the decks.

Celebration turned to chaos when the Eastland tipped over in the Chicago River, killing 844 passengers.

Laughter was replaced by panic. Then, still dockside, the ship tipped.

"I shall never be able to forget what I saw," one eyewitness said. "People . . . were clustered so thickly that they literally covered the surface of the water." People clutched "at anything they could reach--at bits of wood, at each other, grabbing each other, pulling each other down, and screaming! The screaming was the most horrible of all."

On shore, bystanders threw wooden planks and crates into the river to help the floundering Western Electric employees stay afloat. Alerted by screams coming from inside the Eastland, workmen cut holes in the ship's exposed side in an effort to free those trapped inside. By 8 a.m.--just an hour and a half after the laughter of anticipation had filled the air--it was over.

Eight hundred and forty-four people had drowned in 20 feet of water, the worst disaster in Chicago history.

After many years, the courts blamed a by-then deceased engineer who, it was charged, neglected to fill the ballast tanks properly. Few were convinced, and in the years since then, historical sleuths have sought to spread the blame. They note that just before the 1915 season, 2 inches of concrete--14 tons--had been laid between decks to keep the ship's wooden floors from rotting, contributing to its instability. Also, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster, public pressure required ships to add additional lifeboats. Did the extra weight of the boats help tip the Eastland?

The disaster was, said Karl Sup, co-founder of the Eastland Memorial Society and the grandson of two Eastland survivors, "a dark chapter in Chicago history."