Send us a text
🛳️🎶 “Goodbye, Everybody…” That was the jaunty tune Benton Harbor residents remembered the Eastland playing from its calliope — long before the disaster.
🎙️ In Episode 112 of Flower in the River, we travel to Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan — twin port cities on Lake Michigan — to uncover their overlooked connection to the Eastland. A year before the tragedy, the ship raced across the lake in a friendly steamer rivalry, cheered on by local crowds. It was a different time, full of hope and hometown pride.
 Then came July 24, 1915. And everything changed.
 💬 This episode includes:
- Rare interviews with survivors and local witnesses
- Forgotten details from small-town newspaper archives
- The eerie legacy of “Goodbye, Everybody” — remembered years later as the song that once echoed from the Eastland’s decks
-  A city that cheered… and then mourned
Resources:
- The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan), June 15, 1914
- The Herald-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan), July 24, 1965
- “Good-Bye, Everybody,” Henry Burr, 1912. Library of Congress National Jukebox
- • Hilton, George W. Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic. Stanford University Press, 1995. See Chapter 3 for coverage of the St. Joseph–Chicago Steamship Company
