In August 1943 a ship named the "USS Wilmette" was given the honor of transporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Admiral William D. Leahy, James F. Byrnes and Harry Hopkins on a 10-day cruise to McGregor and Whitefish Bay to plan strategies for World War II. The "USS Wilmette" was a naval ship that had been commissioned in 1918 and was constructed by retrofitting the former "SS Eastland", a passenger ship which in July 1915 rolled over in the Chicago River resulting in 884 deaths (the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck in Great Lakes history).