History in Highwood

The Lady Elgin was a wooden-hulled side-wheel steamship that sank in Lake Michigan on the early morning of September 8, 1860, claiming nearly 400 lives.  The boat, owned by early Chicago resident Gurdon Hubbard, left Milwaukee on the evening of September 6 with passengers hoping to hear a Presidential campaign speech by Stephen Douglas, who was then running against Abraham Lincoln.  Following a day of political speeches and an evening of entertainment by a German brass band, the ship headed back to Milwaukee.  At about 2:30 a.m., while most passengers slept, the ship was rammed by a schooner amidst turbulent waters and gale force winds.  There were some survivors, but most of the people perished.  In May 1989, Harry Zych discovered some of the remains of the Lady Elgin off the coast of Highwood, Illinois, and today those remains (which are now on the National Archive Of Historic Places) serve as an underwater attraction for divers. the tragedy remains the greatest loss of life on open water in the history of the great lakes.