(birds squawking) - Ah, the joys of traveling
the river on a steamboat. People have enjoyed
the fresh air and adventure of
an excursion boat from the time of Robert
Fulton until the 1920's, but steamboat traffic
has not always been safe. Several calamities
have had an important impact on the town of Pekin, including a boiler explosion
on the Prairie State at the wharf claiming 110 lives. 40 years later, William
and Emma Capoot were on board a boat
called the Frankie Folsom heading back home to Pekin. They made a promise
that day in 1892. - A terrible storm came through and the boat was capsized
and several people, I'm not sure how
many were killed, I think about a dozen were
killed on the Frankie Folsom. William and Emma
Capoot survived. And after that
incident they vowed that they would never go
on a steamboat ever again and they kept that
promise until 1918 when neighbors said
steamboats are different now, they're bigger,
there's more safety, they're safer now is
what they told them. And they did convince the
Capoots to go with them on that excursion
that night in 1918. (water churning) (folk music) - Riverboats of all
forms plied the waterways as former Europeans helped to
push the boundaries of America further west in
the early 1800's. The development of
steam-powered boats helped to fuel this expansion. As towns sprang up
along the river, so did the need for more
goods and materials. Packet boats sprung up
to deliver a wide array of merchandise to
these growing towns. - Everything was carried
on the steamboat, freight, animals,
they even brought some of the first
railroad trains that would eventually put the
steamboats out of business. And then the excursion
boats came after those boats went
out of business. They stopped carrying
freight on the steamboats and they were
carrying on railroad and so they had to figure
out how to use a steamboat and they turned them
into excursion boats. (bell tolling) - [Brian] The renovated
excursion boats were designed for play
instead of work. One of the more popular vessels on the Illinois River
was the Columbia. Like many excursion
boats it began its career as a work boat under
a different name. - The Douglas
Boardman was a boat that was used on the
Mississippi River to carry and push
logs down to some of the lumber baron yards along
the Iowa side of the river. The Douglas Boardman
became the Columbia and this is how it
worked back then. Usually when the
hull of the ship was worn out just
because of use, they would replace the hull,
put a brand new hull there, and take the upper
works of the boat and just put that on a new hull, usually give it a new name. The Columbia was typical
of steamboats at the time. It was maybe one of the larger
boats in the Peoria area, but it also had that
birthday cake tier design where the main floor,
the bottom floor, was the largest and
then a little bit smaller was the second
floor, the dance floor deck, and then the top floor
was kind of a viewing area and then they had a smaller, they called it a
Captain's Quarters. And then on top of the
Captain's Quarters was the highest
point of the ship which was the pilot house. - [Brian] One of the
more popular destinations for excursion boats was
Al Fresco Amusement Park, about five miles north of
Peoria on the Illinois River. - It was a great name for
it 'cause it was open air right here looking over
the Illinois River and it had all the
usual features of an amusement park
with the rollercoaster and the Ferris wheel
and all the rides and everything that comes
with an amusement park, but they've also
had palm readers, they had fortune tellers,
they had dancing, and a big part out
here was music. There was entertainment
virtually every weekend night and even sometimes
during the week. And some of Peoria's
biggest bands and orchestras played here. We also had entertainment
from all over the country. They had Tom Mix, they had
John Sullivan the boxer, they also had Harry Houidini. They wanted to be a clean,
family fun area and with
beaches. They had 500 lockers for
folks to put their clothes in and get out there and
swim and lay on the beach and everything. - The waters made for
a very nice beach, because the Illinois
River flows gently from Henry, Illinois to its
confluence with the Mississippi. It is generally a
straight river, but it does have a
couple of curves. Now one of those curves
is known as Wesley Bend because of a small fishing
village known as Wesley City, today called Creve Coeur. But that bend has two
90 degree turns. A century ago the
Columbia, Al Fresco Park, and Wesley Bend found
themselves at the confluence of the worst tragedy
on the Illinois River. A 100 years later we
still search for the cause of the sinking of the Columbia. (old-fashioned music) Nearly 500 people
were anticipating an evening full of
entertainment on July 5th, 1918. The Columbia was
picking up passengers at two locations before heading
north on the Illinois River. - [Ken] After they
picked up a load of coal, about 40 passengers
boarded in Kingston Mines. Then they came back up to Pekin and that's where about
450 or so people mostly from the South Side
Social Club boarded the ship and it was called the Midnight
or Moonlight Excursion. And they were gonna
leave from Court Street, the foot of Court
Street in Pekin where they picked up
most of the passengers and they would steam upriver to the Alfresco Amusement Park. And then they'd come back and they promised everyone
they'd be back by midnight. - [Bob] The people
had a great time. I mean they were excited
to go to Al Fresco Park, it was a major attraction on
the Illinois River at Peoria. - [Monica] It was about
an hour and a half ride down here to Al Fresco Park. It was promoted to come
down here at the park, but I found in research they
only stayed about half an hour. - [Ken] After a half hour,
there was no passenger list, they weren't checking names off as they came back to the ship. But the only way that people
knew how to get back on was they would ring the bell or they would blow the whistle. - As the passengers scurried
to get back on board for the return trip,
one man hesitated. When George Heim and his
wife had boarded in Pekin, he had what you might
call a prescient vision. He was a sailor and
his instinct told him something was wrong
with the Columbia. - And he even went to
one of the crewmen and asked him I think
there's a problem here, can I talk to the captain? And they kind of
pushed him aside, they didn't really answer
any of his questions. So he thought you know,
that's it for me. He got off at the Al
Fresco Amusement Park and decided I'm not
getting back on. - The captain was Herman
Mehl and he was not worried. He felt he had the safest
boat on the Illinois River. After all, the federal
government had told him as much with two inspections
earlier that same year. - The federal inspectors from
the Department of Commerce Steamboat Division
came up from St. Louis and came up here to Peoria
and went through the boat and they found some problems. And what they found
was some crack seals were getting larger in the hull, which isn't unusual
for an older boat and this was an older boat. So they told the captain
before we can approve you for this next excursion season, you need to make these
changes, you need to fix this. So the captain ended up
sending the boat down river and not only fixing those seals, but also reinforcing
the hull with steel. The inspectors came back and they went through
the boat again, another thorough inspection, and they were so impressed
by what the captain, Mr. Mehl, had done that
they called the boat the safest boat on
western waters. And the captain was
so happy about that that on the side of
his boat that year he pained the words
safety first. (ominous music) - The federal safety designation filled the captain
with confidence, so much so that he made a
risky financial decision. - Yeah, he didn't have
insurance that year because he called the Illinois
River that muddy creek. And the reason why he
did this was because the river itself
isn't very deep. It's maybe about 20 feet, maybe a little bit more
at its deepest point. And the height of the
Columbia up to the top of the pilot house,
about 45, 50 feet. So you figure if the boat just
slowly sinks into the water, at least the top
deck of the boat is still gonna be above water. - The captain made one other
change to his boat that year, a change that would
prove ill-fated. He extended the interior
of the second deck. - [Ken] Not only did it
expand the dance floor and maybe that's what he wanted was to get more people
on the dance floor, but what it also
did is it removed two of the exits at
least to the outside, which were on the
sides of the ship. So now the only way to get
down to the other levels was to go to the
stairways on both ends, both the bow and the
stern had a stairway. - With these recent
repairs and renovations completed earlier in the
year and a confident captain, the Columbia was ready for
a summer of excursions. It was Friday, July
5th and the boat was heading south
from Al Fresco Park. It had been an uneventful
trip as the boat passed Peoria and headed to Wesley city. - [Bob] And they were
on a part of the river where the captain and the pilot
had been many, many times. So they didn't expect
any kind of problem. - It was nearing midnight
and Tom Williams, the boat pilot with 25
years of experience, saw a fog was setting in. He turned on the
searchlight to help cut through the gathering mist. - [Ken] Not only was he
going through a treacherous part of the river, the bend, but also in that bend
was a very large sandbar. And all the pilots knew that, it was on the navigational map, but you had to go one way or
the other to get around it. So you had to do some steering
to get around the sandbar and you're also going
around this curve. - [Brian] Remember, when
the Columbia stopped at Kingston Mines it took
on a fresh load of coal. That coal was stored in
the front of the boat. - [Bob] The coal probably
caused the boat to kinda shift and the pilot couldn't
turn it with that heavy coal stored in the boat. - So he was drifting
over and I don't know whether he chose to go to the
Peoria County side or not, but he was drifting over
to the Peoria County side and couldn't stop it
so the boat drifted until it actually
scraped the shoreline. And no one in the boat had
any idea was was going on, they couldn't see
outside the walls. But when a branch broke
through a window, that's when one person
who was on the dance floor (glass shattering) said everyone just
stopped in their shoes. (people gasping) The captain, when he
heard that window break the first thing
that he thought was possibly because of
where they were at and because of what he knew was on the Peoria
County shoreline, that possibly a branch
or a submerged stump had stoved a hole in the hull. He thought that first. So he called for a first mate. And the first mate came and
the captain told him orders, go down to the engine room and
check for water in the hull. And so the first mate
came in and said the captain wants you
to check for water and the engineer
says I already did, I do it every time. We checked it when
we left Al Fresco. And they did every time
the boat would move, they would always
check the hull. Now checking the hull was
a matter of a trap door on the first deck
where they would just open it up and look down. So he grabbed the flashlight
and they went to the door and he opened up the door
and he shined the flashlight and they say he rose up quickly
and was as white as a ghost. And then the first mate
actually jumped into the hull and when he got out his
trousers were soaked over the top of his knee. So there was trouble. He ran back up to the
captain, told the captain, showed him the water
on his trousers and said there's water
in the hull, sir. How much? And then gave him an indication that was about two,
maybe three feet. So the captain shouted up to
the pilot, run her ashore, Tom. Run her ashore is what he said. Well of course they were
already along the shoreline, but I think what the
captain had in mind and what the pilot
ultimately decided was that they had time
enough to move the boat over to the other
side of the river. Now why would they do that? - The Columbia ran aground
on the Peoria County shore. It was a rough shore with trees
and shrubs and underbrush. Whereas on the opposite
shore was Tazewell County, it was not only a
shallower approach, but there were people
living there in Wesley City, coal milers and fishermen. A decision had been made. (dramatic music) - And so the pilot sent word
down to the engine room, full speed ahead. He backed up the boat
off the shoreline and off they went full
steam ahead towards the Tazewell County
side of the river. In the meantime,
the captain knew that if the boat did sink and
it would start to sink slowly, he had to get everybody
up to the top deck. So he started shouting
get to the top, get to top he shouted. And at first everyone
was confused like what do we need
to go to the top for, Until the captain said
the boat is sinking. He had to almost
give a description of what was happening
before people responded. And maybe that wasn't
the best call, because then at that
point panic, chaos, (people shouting) and everyone on the dance floor, those who possibly could
have left the exits and walked along the deck rail on the outside to the stairwell, were suddenly making
their way to only two exits on either
side of the ship. (yelling) And the people who were
on the dance floor deck who survived
remembered hearing the sound of timbers cracking,
of boards, beams breaking. before the boat just fell apart. (crashing) (yelling) (water sloshing) - They all got
trapped in the boat when it broke in half,
the hull broke in half, and then the concession
stand and other things came sliding down
the dance floor where most of these
people where. They were dancing,
having a good time, and then they were trapped
inside the wreckage. - [Ken] They say most of
the people who were killed were killed by they called
it a violent death back then. You were struck by
something heavy and either you were knocked
unconscious, killed instantly, knocked unconscious
or you drowned because you were unconscious. But most of the people
who were killed were killed by the
falling debris that had crashed on top of them. - The Columbia had two lifeboats and numerous life preservers, but they were of little
use in the chaos and confusion of the passengers as the boat went down quickly. As the Columbia lay crumpled
in the middle of the river, a rescue effort began, made difficult by the
darkness of the late hour. The earliest rescuers
were passengers, including brothers
Joe and Bill Kumpf. Joe put his swimming
skills to work. - He was one of the first
to start helping people by dragging people
over to the shoreline. Then he'd go back, swim
back out into the river and grab someone else. But one time he went back
and someone had panicked and grabbed him and the
weight of the other person apparently pulled him down
and he perished as well. On his grave site is written
the hero of the Columbia, Joe Kumpf. - To the north of the
accident Chester Stringer was working that
night at the Peoria and Pekin Union Rail
yard when a call came in ordering a train to
help deliver survivors from the wreck site to Pekin. Stringer quickly volunteered, his wife and son were
on the Columbia. - [Ken] So when he heard that
the Columbia had went down, he volunteered even
though he was supposed to get off on his shift, he volunteered to take
one of the special trains. They started sending
special trains and that's where he
saw and realized and was waving franticly
at his wife and child as they both
recognized each other. - [Brian] As the
body count mounted, county coroner Laurence
Clary, who was also a doctor, was called a little
after one in the morning. Upon arrival he realized the
rescue effort was winding down, but he decided to
wait until morning before any further recovery
efforts would continue. - [Ken] But there were
several bodies by the dozen that had been pulled initially out of the wreckage that night and the coroner had
made a decision that those bodies would
be taken by tugboat down the river to Court Street and then carried by
volunteers from Court Street, or from the river up to a
makeshift morgue on Court
Street. - In all 87 people
perished in the wreck, many of them were trapped
beneath the submerged rubble. Rescuers sought local
diver Earl Barnwalt to help find and
recover the bodies. - [Bob] He had the equipment
and so he was the first one to start doing the diving
and trying to recover some of the bodies. Eventually they called on a
experienced diver from Chicago. His name was Harry Halverson. - [Brian] That in turn
required volunteers to transport the
bodies to shore. Help came from Jake Graff,
a Pekin City constable, an officer of the peace. - Jake's primary
job was to remove the bodies off of the boat. He did have a small
rowboat and there wasn't a lot of them on the
river at that time, but Jake having a car and a boat and he could haul it. My grandma remembers
him putting it on top of the old model T
and going to Wesley city. - The dead were of all ages. One of the youngest was Mabel
Harbolt from Kingston Mines. She was just 18 months old. The stories are tragic. Amy Witcher was found
by her would be rescuers embracing her two sons,
one last embrace. One was seven, the other
was barely a year old. Her husband survived. He was someplace else
when the boat went down. There was a girl who had just
graduated from high school. She went on the
trip with a friend and they almost missed the boat
when it left Al Fresco Park. - They didn't hear the whistle
or the bell go at first until they finally they
did and then they ran. They said they ran like the wind to try to get on the boat. And the one girl said
that they had just arrived as the gang plank was
starting to go up and they were able
to bring it down and they were both able
to get on the boat. One of those girls was one
of the victims that night. - [Brian] Questions
remained after the accident. Among them, did the expansion
of the dance floor walls contribute to the
boat's collapse? This is not clear, but it may have hampered
the exit of passengers. There was a clear
answer to the question about whether the
hog chain snapped, which would have accounted
for the boat buckling in two. - The hog chain, it's
a heavy steel cable that goes from the
front of the boat, up across the top like a
bridge and down to the back. And what it does, it holds the stern and
the bow up like this. - The captain had told them
the hog chains did not snap. He said I know this for a fact. And when they finally
did look at the wreckage and saw the poles that held
the hog chains together, it was the poles that snapped. - A federal inspector
supported the claim. The hog chains had been
pulled out intact. But another question that
remains unanswered to this day, what punched a
whole in the hull? Was it a submerged tree
stump, a log, or the sandbar? A series of legal
proceedings did not provide a definitive resolution. - The best explanation is
that it was an older boat that it was very stressed that
night due to several factors and that whatever
started to break first just caused that
change reaction, the whole first deck to come crashing down on the
dance floor deck. - In 1919, Tazewell
County filed charges against the Captain,
Herman Mehl, the pilot, Tom Williams,
and the captain's brother, August Mehl, who was
the steamship's purser. - There was some
question on whether he was letting people
or stopping people from going up one
of the stairwells. And they where all charged with negligence
and manslaughter. And the question is
really not whether or not they were out to kill
anybody that night, but whether or not they had
made the right decisions. - Those criminal charges
were eventually dismissed, but the federal
government initiated its own legal proceedings
against the captain and the
pilot. - But when the
Steamboat Division came from the
Department of Commerce, two federal inspectors, the same two inspectors
who had called the boat the safest boat on
western waters, came back after the
wreck to interview the captain and pilot to decide whether they had made the
right decisions as crewmen. And that was an easy one
that they were definitely guilty of not making
quick and efficient and in this case possibly
deadly decisions. So both the captain and the
pilot lost their licenses. - Tom Williams, the
pilot, suffered from an undisclosed ailment in
the aftermath of the sinking. A year after losing
his pilot's license, he was admitted to the
Jacksonville State Hospital, a mental institution. He never left, he died there
nearly eight years later. Captain Mehl, on the other
hand he fared much better. - [Ken] The captain, and
he was a business man, so he ended up just
going about what he did which was at that
point selling cigars and got into the
real estate business and lived to be an old man. (somber music) - William and Emma
Capoot survived the sinking of the
Frankie Folsom in 1892 and they kept their
promise to never board another steamboat
for 26 years. Tragically they broke that
promise to themselves. They were two of 57
Pekinites who died that night in the sinking of the Columbia. Lucille Adcock was more
fortunate when she made that boat trip with her
brother, she was 18 years old. - They hung on they
said to a pole and were able to
stay afloat until they were rescued
by men in boats. So they were able to get
out of the water quickly. She grew up to tell her story. She became Lucille Bruder
when she got married and she told the
newspapers stories during the anniversaries
as the years passed. And in 2006 when they
were rededicating the historical marker
here at Riverfront Park and they were having a ceremony, they were naming off the
victims, ringing the bell, Lucille was supposed to be
a guest of honor that day, but she wasn't feeling well. So her daughters
spoke on her behalf. At the end of the ceremony they
threw flowers into the river and then Lucille's daughters
went to the nursing home to check on their mom
and when they got there they were told that their mother had just passed
away in her sleep. - [Bob] The steamboat era
basically ended here in Peoria. There were two dozen
steamboats lined up doing charter
excursions at one time and they were almost always
filled every weekend. After the Columbia
wreck, that changed. People were scared
to get on the boat. (somber music) (somber music)
