On this day, June 15, in 1904, more than 1,000 people died when the steamboat General Slocum caught fire in the East River in New York. The boat was a paddle steamer built in 1891. At the time of the 1904 fire, the ship was on a chartered run and was carrying about 1,300 members of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church to a picnic on Long Island.
An estimated 1,021 people died in the fire, making the blaze New York City’s deadliest disaster until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The cause of the fire was never definitively determined, but is believed to have been a discarded cigarette or match that was fueled by oily rags and lamp oil.
– Emily Babay
