A simple twist of fate saved a future sports legend from one of Chicago’s deadliest tragedies. Running late for a summer picnic, a young George Halas missed the devastating capsizing of the SS Eastland, inadvertently preserving the future of the NFL and the legacy of the Chicago Bears.
Football Feature Story
The day was July 24, 1915, a summer morning in the Windy City, promising fun and relaxation to beat the heat. The next day’s edition of the Chicago Tribune covered a story that turned the town on its head and almost changed the course of gridiron history. On their front page, the headline read of a great tragedy.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons via Max Rigot Selling Company, Chicago – Set of 6 Penny postcard supplied by Kathe Kaul Estate Sales of Kansas City, MO
919 bodies recovered. Total Eastland victims may reach 1,200. The gruesome headline was telling a terrible story on how Saturday, July 24th, 1915, a ferry boat named the SS Eastland was preparing to take 2,500 passengers, mostly employees of the Western Electric Company and their families, on a short trip to the company’s summer picnic.
The Eastland was owned by the St. Joseph Chicago Steamship Company and made money by ferrying people from downtown Chicago to picnic sites along the shores of Lake Michigan.
The Tribune article said there was some speculation that the boat was carrying more than the maximum number of passengers, which was 2,500, and that more like 3,200 people were on board. But the crew swears they turned people away after the counter reached the 2,500-people-on-board mark.
The disaster occurred in Chicago near the Clark Street Bridge on the Chicago River, and when officially 844 lives were lost after all the smoke had cleared and days had gone by, and they finally found out how many had passed, of more than 2,500 people on board when the Great Lakes Transport Ship capsized while still near the dock.
A story on History.com says that about 7,300 people arrived at the dock between LaSalle and Clark Streets at 6 a.m. to be carried out to the site by five steamers in total. The Eastland was one of those five steamers.
While bands played, much of the crowd, perhaps even more than 2,500 people allowed, boarded the Eastland. Some reports indicate that the crowd may have all gathered on one side of the boat to pose for a photographer, thus creating an imbalance on the boat.
In any case, engineer Joseph Erickson opened the ballast tanks, which hold water in the boat and stabilize the ship, and then the Eastland began to tip.
And according to a story from July 24th, 2019, on chicagotribune.com, a certain 20-year-old man named George Halas was supposed to be on board, but he was running late, and when he arrived shortly after 7:30 a.m., the vessel had already capsized.
See, Halas had a summer job with the Western Electric Company, and he was excited, as were many of his co-workers, to participate in company picnic games that day. Though Halas saw the disastrous aftermath, he was not at the site when the boat flipped on its side.
Errantly, Halas’s name appeared in the newspaper three days later, and we have a clipping from newspapers.com showing it on our website, pigskindispatch.com, for the July 24th football history headlines. It’s very interesting.
The newspaper clipping was read by two of his fraternity brothers from the University of Illinois, who showed up at his parents’ home to express their condolences, per Halas’s grandson, Patrick McCaskey.
Now, Halas did, in fact, miss the tragedy and go on to have some awesome accomplishments in his life. In 1919, he was a New York Yankees outfielder.
A year later, he moved to Decatur, Illinois, to work for starch manufacturer A.E. Staley Corporation and became a player-coach of the company’s football squad and a player on a baseball team, but he was a salesman for the starch company by day.
On September 17th, 1920, he represented Decatur Staley’s football team in helping to found the American Professional Football Association, which two years later became the NFL.
George was eventually given control of the Staleys, moved them to Chicago, and soon after called the team the Bears, and won some great NFL championships with the franchise as a player, coach, and owner. His family, under the McCaskey name, still owns the Bears franchise, even to this day.
And what a great man he was to do such great things in helping to found the NFL. He actually helped name the NFL.
If you listen to John Steffenhagen’s story about Leo Lyons, who was a friend of Halas, and then Halas’s own memoirs, according to John, the words NFL were changed, and National Football League had changed from the American Professional Football Association because of Leo Lyons, Joe Carr, and George Halas.
So the name might not even be that, you know, it could be the Major League Football, like Leo Lyons wanted it or, you know, Joe Carr, whatever name he wanted to.
But, you know, Halas helped name the team and provided all those great historic football moments with the Chicago Bears up there at Soldier Field. So, you know, we’re very happy that he missed that tragedy. Very sad that the tragedy ever happened so long ago.
Conclusion:
History remembers the SS Eastland capsizing as a horrific catastrophe, but it also represents a monumental pivot point in American sports. Fate spared George Halas that tragic morning, allowing him to spearhead the creation of the National Football League, build the Chicago Bears dynasty, and forever change the cultural landscape of professional football.
