3. SS Eastland
Commissioned during 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan, the SS Eastland would make her maiden voyage in May 1903, but tragedy would happen quickly when she struck and tugboat just a month later. Despite more problems, she would spend the next 12 years taking tourists on tours across the Great Lakes.
On 24 July 1915, she was chartered to take employees from Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. While still in the port, and just after all the passengers had boarded, the ship had reached her capacity of 2,572 passengers, the ship began listing away from the dock and would eventually roll into the water. Sadly, 800 people would lose their lives that day and make this disaster the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
4 thoughts on “Top 6 Maritime Disasters That Weren’t The Titanic”
You left out the Wilhelm Gostloff which was sunk in 1945 by a Soviet Submarine during the closing months of World War Two. The German Passenger Liner was overloaded with German civilians and wounded Soldiers fleeing the oncoming Red Army. The death toll has been estimated between 6000 and 10,000 making it the greatest Maritime disaster.
Excellent point !!
This is not a trajedy but sad. There are many others that really are tragic.
Who came up with this listing of the greatest shipwrecks ?They certainly do not know their history. There was the SS Central America, that sank off the coast of South Carolina in 1857. Not the biggest loss of life but the biggest economic loss ever. It even started a recession shortly there after. It is refereed to as the ship of gold. It sank in a hurricane with300,000,000 in gold and silver at todays prices. Most of the coins,gold and artifacts have been recovered.. Want to know more google SS Central America.