Event: Free Lecture: “The Wreck of the Columbia” by Ken Zurski 

Date & Time: Thur., Jan. 5, 6 p.m. 

Location: Auditorium · Peoria Riverfront Museum · 222 S.W. Washington St. · Peoria 

Cost: Free & open to the public 

Four years after the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912 – then the world’s deadliest maritime disaster – came the worst in Illinois history, the wreck of the Steamer Columbia on the Illinois River near Peoria on July 5, 1918. Of the nearly 500 passengers, 87 died – many trapped in the collapsed decks which sank 20 feet to the bottom of the river. 

As part of its “Titanic” exhibit programming, the Riverfront Museum will hold a free lecture on the Columbia disaster, Thur., Jan. 5 at 6 p.m., by famed local author and historian, Ken Zurski. The lecture is based on Zurski’s book, The Wreck of the Columbia: A Broken Boat, A Town's Sorrow and the End of the Steamboat Era on the Illinois River. 

There were many similarities between the two maritime shipwrecks. Both happened in the dark – the Titanic on a moonless morning, the Columbia at night in a fogbank. 

The Columbia was bought the year the Titanic went down, by Peoria Captain Herman F. Mehl, and on 1917 was extensively renovated for safety. In an eerily similar hubristic twist, the ill-fated steamboat was called the “safest boat on western waters” by safety inspectors – just as the Titanic been declared “unsinkable.” 

Both disasters led to new technology and safety regulations for passenger boats and ships, and in Columbia’s case – to the end of the steamboat era. 

Zurski’s lecture revives the forgotten story of the Columbia through a recreation of the event and through the survivor’s tales of fortitude and survival. 

Zurski is a longtime local broadcaster and author of The Wreck of the Columbia and Peoria Stories. A native of Chicago, where he was a radio personality for many years, Zurski works in Peoria and resides in Morton with his wife and two children. He curates a website of forgotten history stories: unremberedhistory.com. 

“The Wreck of the Columbia” lecture Jan. 5 is free and open to the public and begins at 6 p.m. in the Riverfront Museum auditorium (Water Street level). 

More info is available at the museum, by phone: 309.686.7000, or online at RiverfrontMuseum.org.