March 25th, 1911, Greenwich village, Manhattan, New York. The epitome of sweatshop labor, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a harsh and grueling workplace. During a time of large movements for workers and women rights, and talks of labor unions, The owners of the factory were overly strict and frugal. The approximately 500 employees working that day on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floor of the Asch Building were working in rows of sewing machines and flammable materials with all exit doors locked. Just before quitting time a fire started on the 8th floor, probably from a cigarette, spread rapidly and consumed most of the top 3 floors. It was difficult for the panicked employee’s to escape because the stairwell doors were locked, the elevators saved many peoples lives until they became inoperable, and the rear fire escape eventually became overloaded and collapsed. Some resorted to jumping from the windows. In the aftermath 146 people perished and 78 were injured, mostly women.

Also known as the Great Northern Railway disaster and Americas deadliest avalanche. After days of traveling west and passing through the 2.6 mile Cascade Tunnel, the GNR passenger train was trapped by snow at the tiny town of Wellington Washington in the Cascade Mountains. For 6 days the passengers survived on the train while railmen worked dauntlessly through continuous avalanches to clear the tracks ahead towards the next town. Fearful of the snow looming over them on the mountain above, the passengers were assured that they were safest where they were. The weather was sever and eventually an avalanche swept the GNR passenger train and a mail train off the tracks towards the river below, resulting in 96 deaths and 23 surviving injured.

Last Voyage of the Lady Elgin On Saturday, September 8, 1860 at 2:30 a.m., the sidewheel steamship was full of Milwaukee’s Union Guard and civilians returning to Milwaukee from political rallies in Chicago. During gale force winds and thunderstorms, the Lady Elgin was struck on the port side by the schooner Augusta. Within 20 minutes, the Lady Elgin broke apart and sank as the Augusta raced to Chicago to save itself. After a perilous night, about 350-400 passengers were drifting upon flotsam in stormy waters. After several hours, and still two miles from shore, most of the survivors lost their fight to live as they succumbed to the waves breaking on the rocky shoreline. Approximately 300 perished. The Lady Elgin disaster resulted in the greatest loss of lives in open water in the history of the Great Lakes. Eric Edward Esper After obtaining my BFA in Illustration from Northern Michigan University in 1996 I relocated to Chicago to pursue my artistic endeavors. Here, I began exclusively oil painting and have assembled a body of paintings chronicling scenes of Chicago done primarily in plein air. Capturing parts of the city’s landscape during its cultural evolution had been my way of conveying history as a painter. My fascination with landscapes and history has led me to create oil paintings of scenes that have affected us in dramatic ways. Recently I have begun painting aerial views of locations that have interesting historical significance, encapsulating true stories that are hard to imagine and harder to forget. My latest paintings capture these places and depict them with historically accurate attention to detail. Using various sources I recreate these scenes with as many photographs of every angle of the incident and research the stories, submersing myself in the event. My newest body of paintings depicts events with a more historically tragic significance, depicting scenes of the darkest hours in America’s Midwest history, where the landscape became the backdrop for tragedy and calamity. These events that irrevocably altered so many lives are important to remember, not only for the people lost and how it affected our culture, but also to remind us that disaster can occur at any time, anywhere.

There were several thousand people at the circus on July 6, 1944 for the mid-day show. As excited spectators were watching the Flying Wallendas start their high wire act, a fire started on the sidewall of the enormous big top and spread rapidly over the canvas waterproofed with gasoline and paraffin. As the fire burned over the crowd, a panic driven stampede caused many people to become tangled in the bleachers and animal cages in the ring, trapping them inside the tent as it became completely engulfed and burned to the ground in less than 10 minutes. This tragedy took 168 lives and injured hundreds of people yet no cirus employees or animals perished.

One of the most famous events in Chicago history, the Great Fire changed everything for the city. After starting mysteriously at the O’Leary barn, the fire was swept north by the wind. The depleted city firefighters were still recovering from fighting large fires the night before. Jumping the river, the wooden city fed the fire for nearly two days. The fire reached across four square miles, causing 222 million dollars in property loss, leaving 100,000 people homeless and killing an estimated 300 people.

Our Children of Angels Around 2:30 PM Monday December 1 1958, the schoolchildren of Our Lady Of Angels were almost ready to leave school for the day when they suddenly realized the hallways were filled with smoke. Many of the students and their teachers assumed that they were trapped and resorted to praying, some jumping from second story windows. As neighborhood parents ran to the scene with ladders too short to reach the windows, the fire department arrived in time to pull children from the engulfed second floor, but could not save 92 children and three nuns. The aftermath shattered the community with many children critically burned and emotionally damaged. A subsequent investigation determined a student lit a fire in the basement stairwell Eric Edward Esper After obtaining my BFA in Illustration from Northern Michigan University in 1996 I relocated to Chicago to pursue my artistic endeavors. Here, I began exclusively oil painting and have assembled a body of paintings chronicling scenes of Chicago done primarily in plein air. Capturing parts of the city’s landscape during its cultural evolution had been my way of conveying history as a painter. My fascination with landscapes and history has led me to create oil paintings of scenes that have affected us in dramatic ways. Recently I have begun painting aerial views of locations that have interesting historical significance, encapsulating true stories that are hard to imagine and harder to forget. My latest paintings capture these places and depict them with historically accurate attention to detail. Using various sources I recreate these scenes with as many photographs of every angle of the incident and research the stories, submersing myself in the event. My newest body of paintings depicts events with a more historically tragic significance, depicting scenes of the darkest hours in America’s Midwest history, where the landscape became the backdrop for tragedy and calamity. These events that irrevocably altered so many lives are important to remember, not only for the people lost and how it affected our culture, but also to remind us that disaster can occur at any time, anywhere.