Good-Bye, Everybody: A City, A Ship, A Song

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🛳️🎶 “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

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