Ephemera: Blueprints, Maps Attached 2 examples from a set of blueprints for the CAPE GIRARDEAU (23-35) plus a photograph of her from La Crosse. CAPE GIRARDEAU 1923 - 35 Sternwheel Packet Way's Packet Directory Number 0829 Designed by Tom Dunbar for the Eagle Packet Company. Built in 1923 at Howard Ship Yard, Jeffersonville, Indiana. Went from Louisville to St. Louis in November, 1923. Came out in the St. Louis-Cape Girardeau commerce trade in April 1924; christened at Cape Girardeau on August 24 by Miss Christine Rowling. Made St. Louis to New Orleans Mardi Gras trips between 1925 and 1930. Sold to Greene Line Steamers in 1935 and became the GORDON C. GREENE. Catfish Island Map 1900 Missouri River 1900 MISSOURI RIVER COMMISSION MAP Catfish Island St. Charles County, Missouri Latitude: 38.7011634 Longitude: -90.5415104 Geographic Names Information System I.D. NUMBER : 755865 PLATE VIII MISSOURI RIVER COMMISSION LOCAL WORKS BELOW KANSAS CITY, MO. MAP OF MISSOURI RIVER VICINITY OF HOWARDS BEND ABOVE ST. CHARLES, MO SHOWING LOCATION OF BANK-HEADS 4F, 5 F, AND 6F, COMPLETED DURING THE FALL OF 1897 AND WINTER OF 1898, AND THE CONDITIONS OF FLOW. ALSO EXTENT OF BANK CAVING SINCE SEPT. 1897 AS DEVELOPED FROM SURVEY OF OCT 25TH - NOV.1ST, 1899. NOTE: SHORELINE SHOWN THUS FROM SURVEY OF SEPT 1897 - JUNE 1898 SOUNDINGS REDUCED TO S.L.W. MADE TO ACCOMPANY ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1900 OF S. WATERS FOX, ASSISTANT ENGINEER ENG 56 2 I bought these plans some years ago and had them mounted on linen. They came in two sections and the outfit that mounted them didn't line them up properly so about half way through the pilot house there's a "jog" where the horizontal lines don't match up. They went in with pen and ink and paint brush to try and disguise this but it made it look ever more obvious. I had the gigantic thing scanned by Ford Graphics in Burbank and they saved it as a huge tiff file on a CD. I labored over it in Photoshop to line up everything as closely as possible. This is an extreme reduction of the original humongous scan. - Dave Mississippi River Commission. U.S. Large Tender For Dredges, Designed and drawn under direction of Committee on Dredges M.R.C. and of Capt. H.E. Waterman, Corps of Engineers, U.S.A. Secretary. Longitudinal Section... Plate No. 13 to accompany annual report of Mississippi River Commission for 1898. Plan by Percy H. Middleton, 55 x 17.75". Office of the Secretary, M.R.C. Washington, DC. 1898, Jan. 28. Jim Hale made the following comments: "This is a very detailed drawing of a steamboat. Leave it to the engineers to spend so much time on a drawing. It is a nicer looking boat than most of the boats they built. Seems I have seen a photo of a similar boat, maybe at the Memphis fleet. I wish Howards had made such detailed drawings of the boats they built. Their drawings were just basic outlines at best. I like the bath tub and the little overhang at the stern for the toilet. Mr. Richardson told me when they reversed the wheel it turned the toilet into a bidet." Editor's Note: Please visit Steamboats.com's new model boat page - click here. Mississippi River Commission. U.S. Small Tender For Dredges, Designed and drawn under direction of Committee on Dredges M.R.C. and of Capt. H.E. Waterman, Corps of Engineers, U.S.A. Secretary. Cross-Sections Plate No. 20 to accompany annual report of Mississippi River Commission for 1898. Office of the Secretary, M.R.C. Washington, DC. 1898, Jan. 28. 13.75 x 24 inches For the do-it-your-self'er attached one of the sure 'nuff Gee-Whiz cross-section drawings from which the Red River Hydraulic dredge WATERWAY was built. This illustration appears on page 436 of the journal International Marine Engineering for November, 1912. On page 477 there is also a profile drawing and a deck plan. The text of the article which begins on page 435 "The United States Red River Hydraulic Dredge Waterway," begins thusly: "Early in the summer of this year the Dubuque Boat & Boiler Works, Dubuque, Iowa delivered to the United States Engineers at Vicksburg, Mississippi, the steel self-propelled hydraulic dredge WATERWAY. The dredge is a steel hull boat fitted with the ordinary type of sternwheel towboat machinery, and a sand hydraulic pumping plant for river dredging." For those interested in reading the article in its entirety it is available on line from Google books. There are 18 steamboat pencil drawings in this spiral bound collection: Portraits from the Past STEAMBOATS OF THE WESTERN RIVERS Drawings and Text by Neal R. Finch Fineline Co. St. Charles, MO 1977 My favorite is the one on the last page entitled "Packet Portfolio" with vignettes of stacks, whistles, bell and pilot house. The MINNESOTA, built for the Mayo Brother (Doctors) then worked for the U.S. Engineers and was renamed Three photos and an elevation drawing of the attractive little steamer which began as a private boat for the Mayo Brothers named the MINNESOTA with an intermediate 21 year stretch as the GENERAL ALLEN before being given back the name MINNESOTA again. Below are Fred Way's biographies—he assigned the boat one number in his Packet Directory and two different numbers in his Steam Towboat Directory (for both MINNESOTA and GENERAL ALLEN). MINNESOTA (Private sternwheel pleasure boat, 1915-1922) Way's Packet Directory Number 3954 Built in 1915 at Jeffersonville, Indiana by Howard Ship Yard Became the GENERAL ALLEN Sold to the U.S. Engineers in 1922 and renamed MINNESOTA Original price $30,000. Home port, 1916, St. Paul, Minnesota. She was built in 1915 and launched in 1916. She was built in 1915 at Jeffersonville, Indiana by Howard Ship Yard for the physician partners, Mayo brothers (Dr. Charles Horace Mayo, Dr. William James Mayo) to replace their pleasure steamboat ORONOCO. In October 1916, the MINNESOTA was grounded at French Island, below Owensboro, Kentucky, with one of the Mayo brothers and his family and friends aboard. They had just finished a trip up the Green River and were returning to Louisville when the boat became stuck on a sand bar. The passengers finished their trip by rail. In 1922 the Minnesota was sold at Fountain City, Wisconsin to the U. S. Engineers and renamed GENERAL ALLEN "Mayo and the Mississippi : A Passion for the River" by Matthew D. Dacy (Author) Published by the Mayo Foundation First Edition; First Printing (2004) ASIN: B000PLZ2YS Available from amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Mayo-Mississippi-Matthew-ed-Dacy/dp/B000PLZ2YS This hardcover coffee table book is devoted to the Mayo Bros. and their enjoyment with their family and friends on the Mississippi River aboard the sternwheel steamboats ORONOCO and MINNESOTA and the finally the more conventionally styled yacht the NORTH STAR. The attached elevation drawing of the MINNESOTA is in the collection of the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana at Bloomington It is reproduced on the front fly leaves of "Mayo and the Mississippi : A Passion for the River." GENERAL ALLEN (Sternwheel Towboat/Packet, 1922-1943) Way's Steam Towboat Directory Number T0885 and T2224 Built in Jeffersonville, Indiana, 1915, as the MINNESOTA Owned: 1922: U.S. Engineering Department, St. Paul District 1925: Federal Barge Lines 1943: Central Barge Line 1926: Captain William Henning (master) She was originally the MINNESOTA, a pleasure boat for the Mayo Brothers. Sold to the St. Paul District, U.S. Engineers in 1922 and renamed GENERAL ALLEN. She generally towed on inspection trips. She pioneered the first commercial tow for Federal Barge Lines out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, May, 1926 under the command of Captain William Henning. Originally the WYNOKA was to have handled the first tow, but she ran aground at Island 17 and the GENERAL ALLEN then completed the trip. She also pioneered the first modernized tow of Federal Barge Lines, arriving at St. Paul on August 24, 1927 with two loaded barges. In August 1939, GENERAL ALLEN was sent up the Minnesota River with a quarterboat, derrick and three barges and ascended 30 miles up to Shakopee, Minnesota. The tow had to be broken to get around some of the bends. Years earlier, the PURCHASE had made the same trip, but no boat had since been up until the GENERAL ALLEN's adventure was made. The Central Barge Company bought the George Allen from the US Engineers, Rock Island, Illinois in 1943. They restored the original name of MINNESOTA. 1899 Corps of Engineers Map Mississippi River at Natchez amp; Vidalia Dramatic display of the serpentine course so typical of the much of the Mississippi River. This hand colored Map from the 4th District of the Mississippi River Improvement in the vicinity of the harbors for Natchez, Mississippi amp; Vidalia, Louisiana shows GILES BEND amp; the levee on Cowpen Neck amp; changes in the bank line. Drawn and published in 1899 under the supervision of Major George Mc. C. Derby, Corps of Engineers U.S. Army. Pictorial map for the front fly leaves of a German translation of Mark Twain's LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI ("LEBEN AUF DEM MISSISSIPPI") represents the Mississippi River in 1860 by illustrator Heiner Rothfuchs (1913-2000) for a 1949 German edition published by Kesselringsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wiesbaden. The stylized pen and ink style Rothfuchs employed is very nostalgic evoking the U.S. during its frontier period with costumed characters, a steamboat along with cities and towns. The way the map was attached within the front cover caused a slight gap that is visible down the center but the graphic still reads satisfactorily. STERN PADDLE WHEEL PROPULSION MECHANISM FOR BOATS Drawing etc. submitted with application for a patent: STERN PADDLE WHEEL PROPULSION MECHANISM FOR BOATS PATENT ORIGINALLY FILED DEC. 26, 1931 APRIL 25 1933 PATENT GRANTED NUMBER 1,905,162 RAMON ENSENAT & EVERETT ROOK ATTORNEYS patents.google.com Arrangements on vessels of propulsion elements directly acting on water of paddle wheels, e.g. of stern wheels United States Patent Inventor Edwin J.C. Joerg Worldwide applications 1931 US Application number: US583169A Filing date: 1931-12-26 Application filed by Edwin J.C. Joerg 1931-12-26 Priority to US583169A Application granted 1933-04-25 This is an envelope carried aboard Belle Lee. Photo Courtesy of Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse Steamboat Collection Photographs With the exception of images credited to public institutions, everything on this page is from a private collection. Please contact Steamboats.com for permission for commercial use.* All captions provided by Dave Thomson, Steamboats.com primary contributor and historian.