For 15 years, David Nelson has been the director, curator, accountant and janitor for the Eastland Disaster Museum as it drifted from one west suburban location to another, never occupying a space much larger than a ship’s cabin.
At day’s end Saturday, the lonely champion for preserving the memory of the 1915 capsizing of the Eastland–which killed 844 people and ranks as the deadliest event in Chicago history–was scheduled to close the doors for good on his museum, now located adjacent to a dog-grooming parlor in downtown Wheaton.
The closing of one museum will benefit another, however. Nelson will merge his Eastland artifacts, the largest such collection in the world, with the collection of the Chicago Maritime Society, a group of amateurs taking on the broader cause of the city’s watery history.
But the space Nelson’s collection soon will occupy is really not much better. The society calls the loft space at 310 S. Racine Ave. a “workshop,” not a museum.
Like the Eastland museum, the maritime museum has been adrift, going from one location to another, unable to find a safe harbor.
“You go up the coast of Michigan and there is a little maritime museum in just about every little city,” Nelson said. “Chicago was founded as a maritime city and we don’t have a maritime museum.”
Nelson and the leadership of the maritime society hope that by merging the collections and combining their efforts they can secure a permanent and appropriate home.
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum, located in a 22,000-square-foot facility in Manitowoc, gets 80,000 visitors a year. With a new exhibit, “Pigboats and Plungers,” it expects to break 100,000 this year, according to a spokeswoman.
“There are 220 maritime museums on the North American (continent),” said Deane Tank, a director and past president of the society. “I don’t know of a port city on the continent, except Chicago, that doesn’t have a separate maritime historical museum.”
Since its founding in 1982, the maritime society has floated several ideas for a museum.
When the Lincoln Park Gun Club was shut down, the society hatched a plan to occupy the building. The historic club building, located in a particularly congested portion of the crowded park, was instead torn down in 1997.
The society now has its eyes on an emergency equipment building at Meigs Field.
Thatcher Waller, vice president of the society, said the group is waiting to formally pitch the plan to the city and the Chicago Park District.
“When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, we never learned about the city’s maritime history,” Waller said. “We want to find a home for it. Preferably near water.”
Nelson will serve as curator of his Eastland memorabilia collection.
“There are hundreds of artifacts still out there,” Nelson said. “We’re still looking for anything from the Eastland. Everything helps to bring alive the story.”
