The Dowagiac Area History Museum recently announced its 2015 fall lecture series, kicking off at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 2, with historian Caitlyn Perry Dial’s program, “Only the River Remains: The Eastland Disaster 100 Years Later.”

The lecture series continues the first Wednesday of each month through December.

In the summer of 1915, the passenger boat Eastland called St. Joseph, Michigan home. Owned by the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, Eastland transported passengers daily between the cities of St. Joseph and Chicago.

On July 24, 1915, the Western Electric Company chartered Eastland to transport 2,500 of its employees from Chicago to a company picnic in Michigan City. Eastland capsized while still tied to the dock, killing 844 people. This presentation will discuss the boat’s history, the events of that day, and how after a century the tragedy remains the Great Lakes’ greatest loss of life disaster.

Caitlyn Perry Dial is a PhD Candidate in history and former curator of the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center. She is completing her dissertation about the Eastland Disaster at Western Michigan University, and was awarded WMU’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2014-2015. Earlier this summer, Caitlyn shared her research at the National Museum of the Great Lakes and was a guest on Michigan Radio’s Stateside program.

Future programs in the series will be 25 Years of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival, by Dogwood Secretary Bobbie Jo Hartline on Oct. 7; Sports in Southwest Michigan, by Heritage Museum and Cultural Center Curator Mollie Kruck on Nov. 4; and Studebaker Goes to War, by Studebaker National Museum Archivist Andrew Beckman on Dec. 2.

The programs are free to museum members and cost $5 for non-members. Children under 18 years of age are also free. Membership will be available at the museum for those interested. The museum is located at the corner of Division and West Railroad Streets. For more information, call the Dowagiac Area History Museum at (269) 783-2560 or visit www.dowagiacmuseum.info.