5-Mar-17 – The organization tasked with preserving the memory of the Eastland Disaster has expanded its governing board of trustees.

Eastland Disaster Historical Society announced on Sunday three additions to its board.

John Lupton is executive director of Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Association. Tom Panoplos is a managing director at Mesirow Financial. Joe Popa is executive creative director at 88 Brand Partners, a creative agency that is helping EDHS with its branding.

All three have some prior connection with the Eastland Disaster, Chicago’s greatest loss-of-life tragedy in which 844 people died, including 22 entire families. Lupton served on the committee that organized a mock trial in 2015 that legally absolved owners and crew of the S.S. Eastland for the disaster. Panoplos’s grandfather, Tom Chakinis, was a survivor of the Eastland Disaster. Popa owns a home that was previously owned by an Eastland Disaster victim, Nicholas Suerth.

2,500 passengers – mostly employees of Western Electric and their families – were boarding the Eastland for a company picnic in Indiana on July 24, 1915, when it rolled over in the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets.