More Details
One of the worst disasters in the history of United States inland navigation occurred at midnight, Friday, July 5, 1918, when the excursion steamboat Columbia hit a submerged stump and sank into the Illinois River with 496 passengers near Wesley City (present-day Creve Coeur). Eighty-seven passengers, mostly women and children, drowned in the submerged wreckage.
This booklet describes the destruction in detail including contemporaneous newspaper articles as well as a list of crew and victims.
