The story of the Lady Elgin, the deadliest shipwreck in Great Lakes history
About this episode
This episode explores the tragic story of the Lady Elgin shipwreck, the deadliest in Great Lakes history, and its impact on maritime safety regulations.
The Lady Elgin left Chicago for Milwaukee on a stormy September night in 1860 with around 400 passengers aboard. Another vessel was also out in the storm — a small lumber schooner called The Augusta — which crashed into the Lady Elgin a few hours later. “The Lady Elgin was lit, but not well enough for the unlit Augusta to see it,” said Madeline Crispell, the curator at the Chicago Maritime Museum in Bridgeport, home to an exhibit on the Lady Elgin. “Neither ship was able to get out of the way in time.” The Lady Elgin cracked in half a few miles off the coast of Highland Park, Illinois. About 100 people managed to reach the shore, but around 300 lost their lives. “It's the deadliest shipwreck in Great Lakes history,” Crispell said. You may be familiar with the Eastland disaster, which killed over 800 people in 1915 while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. But Crispell said the wreck of the Lady Elgin was even more consequential. She said the Lady Elgin was key to the development of new requirements for lighting ships at night, in the creation of the U.S. Life-Saving Service in 1871, and in the opening of Evanston’s Grosse Point Lighthouse in 1873. In our last episode, we…
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