BIENVILLE STREET WHARF, NEW ORLEANS Taken during Mardi Gras in February of 1924, '26, '27 or '28. 1 CAPE GIRARDEAU built in 1923 and christened in Apr. 1924. She ran Mardi Gras trips from 1925 to 1930. 2 QUEEN CITY 1897 - 1933 Celebrated at great length by Fred Way in his Packet Directory. 3 CINCINNATI double cabin steamboat, hull build by Midland Barge Co., Pittsburgh and completed at Cincinnati in 1924. 4 CLIPPER burned in March, 1928 at the Bienville Street wharf. 5 GEO. PRINCE built 1922. Named for Captain George Prince, a steamboat man. 6 JOHN D. GRACE 1917 - 1930

Cotton packet! Latest acquisition . . . Wm. Garig of the Carter Packet Co. Double stamped original 8 X 10 March 21, 1928 photographs from Chas. L. Franck, 400 Baronne Street, New Orleans, LA. Jim Hale's comment on the Wm. Garig photo: I HAVE TO AGREE WITH CAPT. FRED WAY, THE BEST LOOKING OF THE LATER DAY COTTON PACKETS WERE, THE AMERICA, THE BOB BLANKS AND THE WM.GARIG. THIS SAME PICTURE IS IN "TALES OF THE MISSISSIPPI", ON PAGE 114. I HAVE OFTEN LOOKED AT IT AND NOW I HAVE A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL WITH LOTS OF DETAIL TO LOOK AT. THIS PICTURE MUST HAVE BEEN TAKEN AFTER SHE HAD AGED A BIT BECAUSE THE FANCY RAILING IS GONE AND REPLACED WITH TOW BOAT RAILING. THIS IS THE BEST PICTURE YOU HAVE GOTTEN IN A LONG TIME.

Just arrived latest addition. The lower left corner was torn off so I attempted to restore it as best I could. Chain drive paddlewheel, initials D.W. . . . haven't come across any further history outside of the dealer's description: Real photo of a paddleboat in the late 1890's on a trip down the Ohio River. It was found in an estate of photos that were dated in that era. The men on board are members of a hunting and fishing group that traveled down the Ohio River and stopped at various towns along the way and camped on their journey. Probably circa 1913 - 1919 7.5 x 9 inches original print size

Two photos of the Bald Eagle (above).

Most modest excursion boat I've ever seen, the little SWAN pushing a wooden barge with passengers, maybe off to a picnic along the shore or on an island somewhere. Postmarked Rising Sun, Indiana - looks like 1908. Right across the Ohio River in Kentucky is the memorably named village of Rabbit Hash.

Here's the old original JOE FOWLER (1888 to circa 1917) on a RPPC. I imagine both Walt Disney and his aide-de-camp Joe Fowler were likely aware that an actual steamboat bore his name in ye olden days. In Florida's Disney World the clone of Disneyland's MARK TWAIN launched in 1971 bore the name ADMIRAL JOE FOWLER which lasted until 1980 when its hull was destroyed while the boat was being lifted out of the water with a crane. Joe Fowler was an attraction designer for the theme parks and actually was a retired U.S. Naval Admiral, hence the name of the boat.

Per Fred Way's Packet Directory this little steamboat was: LORENE built Dubuque 1905. 48.8 x 11.5 x 2.4. Made trips to "the Dales of St. Croix". Burned at Ft Snelling 23, Nov, 1911. Here she's at Mankato on the Minnesota pushing an excursion barge called O.K. but she also made excursions on the Upper Mississippi. Postmarked MINNEAPOLIS & CO. BLUFFS R.P.O. AUG 8, 1909. This is a detail of the card where the boat and barge only take up about half of the width of the card at center. The embossed name M & K Novelty STUDIO, MANKATO is not visible to the naked eye except at an angle but the scanner picked it up. Retouching doesn't seem to help since there's still a ghost of the lettering left behind no matter what I attempt in Photoshop.

This is a Florida boat apparently. Moisture damage and abrasions all over the 10 gents made restoration labor intensive. This is one third of the size I scanned it and retouched it at. Nice clear date of May 6, 1900. I like the shiny black twin stacks forward of the neat little pilot house. Must be photos of the entire craft someplace.

Lewis Verduyn of Steamboat Times in New Zealand found these online for me . . . A photo of the St. Lucie from a distance (I sent you one of her with 10 passengers) and and a news article from 2006 that my Google search didn't turn up. If you decide to do a feature on St. Lucie with pictures include credit and links below: Photo is from University of South Florida website, see original - click here. The following 1906 report on the St. Lucie's destruction, comes from The Miami News - Jul 2, 1983 where the 1906 article was edited and reprinted (see original - click here): The Miami Daily Metropolis, Oct. 20, 1906 STEAMER ST. LUCIE WENT DOWN NEAR MOUTH OF CAESARS CREEK; TWENTY-FIVE WERE DROWNED Had Aboard One Hundred and Fifteen Persons Mostly Extension Laborers Thursday's hurricane will go on record as the most disastrous in point of casualties that ever visited this or any other section of Florida. Conservative estimates now place the number of dead at more than one hundred and possibly one hundred and fifty, though details and data are coming in as rapidly as possible... All of the losses so far ascertained are in the keys and among the extension employees. The greatest loss of life and property was at Long Key where every craft was either sunk and driven to sea with large numbers of men aboard, and in the sinking of the steamer St. Lucie off Elliott's Key, twenty-five or more men being drowned from the vessel . . . The beach at Elliott's Key is strewn with corpses and debris. The area of wreckage extends half a mile inland. It is a scene of destruction. At Long Key the conditions are practically the same, except that but few, if any, bodies are on the shore. Grave apprehension for safety of the steamer prevailed all day yesterday. There was a ray of hope, however. but this was shattered upon the arrival of the steamer Peerless, at the terminal dock at 6 o'clock last evening with the majority of the survivors of the Ill-fated craft aboard and the news of the fearful casualty. Immediately the news spread and hundreds flocked to the dock, the majority out of idle curiosity. Men that had been strong and nervy, hobbled ashore, all more or less injured but none fatally. Some were too weak to walk and had to be assisted. Various stories and reports were in circulation relative to the disaster of the St. Lucie and they soon became voiced about the city . . . One of the most complete and graphic stories of the catastrophe and the scenes attending the wrecking of the steamer is told by Second Officer J.W. Grant, one of the survivors. Mr. Grant said: "We left Miami late Wednesday evening about 7 o'clock, I think. We had aboard 115 extension laborers, the greater portion of them white with five or six negro women and one white woman and child. We also had a water barge in tow. All went well until we were off Elliott's Key. About daylight Thursday morning the wind came out of the northeast and we headed to it, putting out two 500 pound anchors. These held but a short time when they parted. Another anchor weighing 400 pounds, held by a large Manila cable was put out and it held, but the wind and sea rose so high that we cut loose both anchors and barge and went adrift. Great seas boarded the boat and all hands rushed to the hurricane deck. She would not steer and about 8 o'clock capsized and went down in about fifteen feet of water, two miles off Elliott's Key and three miles from Caesar's Creek. Not a person had been lost to that time. "A little later there was a lull and during this ten men and myself manned three life boats and started for a two masted coasting schooner that lay between us and the land. Our intention was to take it and go to the rescue of the people huddled on the upper deck of the St. Lucie. We made the schooner, no one was on board it . . . All of the men but myself and a companion boarded the craft and started to sail it to the St. Lucie. They had gotten well under way and were close to the steamer when the wind came out of the north and west, and they were driven away and off their course. The sea, which had abated some, picked up again. Great God, I have never seen it so high. The rain was blinding and beat our faces like shot. I could see nothing more until a sea pitched us out of the lifeboat and into the mangroves on the shore. There my companion and myself clung in the top branches. "Through the fog like rain I saw the schooner being driven down upon us. She was coming broadside and I prepared to cash in. The water was over the top of the mangroves and flooded the whole key six feet deep. Over the bush the vessel passed, coming so close that my companion managed to swing onto her and was carried inland. Today she is a quarter of a mile on the interior of the island, high and dry. "I hung onto the bush and as the tide receded I climbed down and was finally able to touch ground. Later on I was able to crawl and finally reached the interior of the island. I know not just what happened on the St. Lucie after the wind came out of the northwest except that the hurricane deck went by and all were thrown into the water. While I hung onto the bush, men came ashore, some were dead and some were not. They drifted between all kinds of debris and all landed either in the mangroves or went over them into the interior of the island. Those that were able clung to the branches and in this way the most of them were saved. Those that were dead lodged in the trees In most cases, though some passed over them, so high was the water... The tide receded rapidly. It had been a regular tidal wave with seas rolling ten and twelve feet high. After the survivors could get a foothold on the land, we had the time and mind to survey the calamity. Dead bodies were everywhere and men groaning and suffering with pain, bruises and cuts. We found twenty-five or twenty-six bodies, but I believe there are more beneath the debris on the bank." Fred Way used this on the cover of the Dec. 1990 Reflector. I got the original photo from a dealer out here, had Ralph DuPae copy it and got prints made for Fred and others. Photographer was Paul Briol. Tom Greene set him ashore from the Gordon C. Greene then steamed away up river at Pipe Creek. Fred didn't say what year it was or where on the Ohio River that Pipe Creek is located. I would guess the 1940's.

These 3 darling little rafters at Winona are particularly fetching. The Charlotte Boeckeler (far left) was built in 1881, the Glenmont (center) '85, and the City of Winona (right) in '82. Photo circa 1885 or later. 5 X 8 inch albumen print on a card with photographer Charles A. Tenney's stamp.

Back to Oz again . . . this is the Ferryboat Dorothy. I sent a tif file on this last night but have cleaned it up a bit and made a jpg for you. Great little boat with a nice camera angle on it. From a tiny 3 X 4 inch snapshot.

Another favorite. The girl in white and the overall authenticity of the details give it a verisimilitude that few others convey as well. The Liberty at Alton, Illinois 1903.

This may be my favorite steamboat photo. Great pilot house detail and nice setting on the river with smoke, water, real but still sort of romantic. Will get it to Woody Rutter in hopes some S&D'r will recognize the location. G.W. Thomas 1901 - 1913. Fred Way said "She was quite some pumpkin, being highly regarded among river coal towing circles." Apparently a lot of work out of Pittsburgh. After she broke her shaft and dropped her wheel she was salvaged and rebuilt as the Alicia.

Steamer Valletta. Just bought this photo today at a Pasadena post card show. The Valletta (built in 1901 destroyed by fire 1932) was a Sacramento River boat. They're providing transportation for an Odd Fellows picnic here. (I confirmed it was an outing for Lodge 133 at Colusa on the Sacramento River.) This almost looks like a movie still with a bunch of extras. My favorite part (outside of the boat) are the dogs in the lower right corner. Feels like you could step right into this picture doesn't it? There isn't a date on it but I'd guess very early 1900's, not long after it was built. Thought I may have scanned this crooked but the people are standing straight so the boat must be listing towards the shore with too many passengers on that side. The original photo measures 6-1/4 X 8 inches, mounted on a larger piece of board.

This is an undated photo post card that I won in an eBay auction. On the back is penciled "From Mary Vanpattan (to) Miss Irma Carpenter Sandford, Ind." Above these girls dressed in men's clothing Mary wrote their names in pencil. Mary herself is on the right and the one in the middle is Ethel Hay. The name of the one on the left is more difficult. There's an indecipherable squiggle in front of what seems to be the last name "Broeff" This was advertised as being 3 "boys" on eBay, the seller didn't look very closely. The first thing I noticed was the high heeled shoes, then the rolled up trouser legs and outsized coats. Very cute old picture taken aboard a house boat or "shanty" boat. Must date from the early 1900's. Know this isn't steamboaty although that must be a barge right alongside there. From a stereoview of the Pilot House and Texas aboard the Commonwealth steamboat. A stereoview offered two photos that looked like a three dimensional image.

Self explanatory real photo card of the Virginia sunk at Wellsville, Ohio, April 13, 1909.

Won this post card on eBay. The highest I ever paid for one during bidding war, don't even want to remember how much it cost. Great picture of 3 boats at the Kanawha Dock, West Virginia. GEO. MATHESON, J.B. LEWIS and IRON AGE. Nice houseboat in lower right too. a recent eBay purchase . . .

Attached starboard view of the boat with the Presidential colors flying from the pilot house. Also a photo of Teddy returning waves from passengers aboard the City of Saltillo which had pulled alongside the boat he was on.

John McIlhenny (seen here with Teddy on the MISSISSIPPI in 1907) was a Louisiana boy and son of the inventor of Tabasco sauce. McIlhenney was promoted to liutenant in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders after "claiming" to have saved T.R. from a sniper's bullet. I put quotes around the word claiming because that's what McIlhenny's biography says. It seems to cast some doubt on this distinction. Here's a letter from Teddy to his son which makes a nice caption for the picture. From reading this it seems that T.R. may have confused the "Texas" with the pilot house. 107. PECULIARITIES OF MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOATS On Board U. S. S. Mississippi, Oct. 1, 1907. DEAR ARCHIE: ..... I am now on what I believe will be my last trip of any consequence while I am President. Until I got to Keokuk, Iowa, it was about like any other trip, but it is now pleasant going down the Mississippi, though I admit that I would rather be at home. We are on a funny, stern-wheel steamer. Mr. John McIlhenny is with me, and Capt. Seth Bullock among others. We have seen wild geese and ducks and cormorants on the river, and the people everywhere come out in boats and throng or cluster on the banks to greet us. October 4. You would be greatly amused at these steamboats, and I think you will like your trip up the Mississippi next spring, if only everything goes right, and Mother is able to make it. There is no hold to the boat, just a flat bottom with a deck, and on this deck a foot or so above the water stands the engine-room, completely open at the sides and all the machinery visible as you come up to the boat. Both ends are blunt, and the gangways are drawn up to big cranes. Of course the boats could not stand any kind of a sea, but here they are very useful, for they are shallow and do not get hurt when they bump into the bank or one another. The river runs down in a broad, swirling, brown current, and nobody but an expert could tell the channel. One pilot or another is up in the Texas all day long and all night. Now the channel goes close under one bank, then we have to cross the river and go under the other bank; then there will come a deep spot when we can go anywhere. Then we wind in and out among shoals and sand-bars. At night the steamers are all lighted up, for there are a dozen of them in company with us. It is nice to look back at them as they twist after us in a long winding line down the river.

Two photos of the Steamer City of Wheeling. One is a little out of focus; the other was dark and murky but after scanning it I was able to improve the contrast and brightened it up. Michael Blaser said the perspective on it is especially good. Nice reference for a model maker to work from.

Photo above is of the Steamer Greenland. Jim Hale believes that's Mary Greene to the right of the bell on the hurricane roof. Post marked July 1906. From a dealer in Sisterville, WV.

Here's a good photo of the interior of the SPRAGUE's pilot house. She had the biggest pilot wheel of them all (13 1/2 feet!). Wish I could have visited the boat before she was burned in '74. She must have been an awesome sight to behold in person. Photo Courtesy of Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse Steamboat Collection Photographs

This was taken aboard the Princess, photo by Lawrence J. Neumann, 945 Gest Street, Cincinnati.

Attached of the J.C. Kerr is a bit scuffed and scruffy, but an interesting photo. The boat was built in 1884 and operated on the upper Ohio until 1892 when she moved to the Green River trade where this photo was most likely taken. In 1894 she was rebuilt a bit and renamed Chaperon which she is better known by. In 1917 she ended up on the Yazoo and tributaries, renamed the Choctaw. Burned on the Tallahatchie in 1922.

You've got to love the old J.B. Bassett, she has a picturesque and unpretentious working boat quality to her that is ingratiating. Her owners name sounds like it should be adopted by a trendy new brewery: The Mississippi and Rum River Boom Co. The Mississippi River field guide web site has a capsule history of the company which is informative. www.fmr.org/fieldguide/site_detail.php?site_id=32pi submitted by: Steve Lee The Mississippi and Rum River Boom Co. Location: River Mile 859.70 - On Both Banks At about Lyndale and 56th North was an operation area of the Mississippi & Rum River Boom Company. Northern Minnesota loggers cut trees and floated logs down the tributaries and the Mississippi to the sawmills at St. Anthony (Minneapolis). Of course logs of the different logging companies got all mixed together. Each log was stamped on its ends with the company's brand. The St. Anthony Boom Company and the Mississippi Boom Company were chartered to sort logs into the correct "booms" for the various companies. A boom is a string of chained logs that channel and corral floating logs. The companies received 40-50 cents per thousand logs sorted. These two companies merged into the Mississippi and Rum River Boom Company in 1856. Their operations extended up the river to Monticello.

This just in, scanned off a teeny snapshot, came out pretty well. Must've been taken from a pretty high bluff overlooking the river. This towboat Mark Twain is also in those 2 photos of mine that were taken at Hermann, MO on the Missouri River.

The Towboat Mark Twain in a lock and dam that is quite a ways up river from Hannibal, close to Canton. The postcard publishers obviously were selling it to Hannibal merchants who catered to tourists.

MARK TWAIN towboat. Great reference for a model maker. http://www.wilbornfoto.com/stock.htm Copyright 1934 No. WA 60-6 Wilborn & Associates Photographers 3101 Mercier Kansas City, MO 64111

2 views the towboats MARK TWAIN and GENERAL ASHBURN at the Hermann, MO waterfront on the Missouri River. The 1st view is off a real photo post card I just acquired of a panorama including the Gasconade County courthouse taken from the north side of the river looking south. The 2nd view is from the Murphy Library taken from the bridge and looking East. The people dressed in white may suggest that "Maifest" (a German holiday) was going on in town, I'm not sure. These weren't dated. The earliest they could have been taken was 1932 when the Mark Twain was began her career and the latest 1945 when the General Ashburn's career ended. Herman is like a storybook village, very well preserved and unspoiled. I looked at properties there 2 years ago, very tempted to relocate there although Hannibal has the most associations for me. The Missouri River at Hermann is not as wide or pretty as the Mississippi at Hannibal, wing dams are located up and down the river in part to protect some endangered species of fish and river commerce is much less than on the Mississippi. Excursion boats are a rarity on this stretch of the river. I don't know if the DQ ever ventured very far up the Missouri, the channel is much narrower and more treacherous than the other tributaries so probably too hazardous to risk navigating. At the time this photo was taken I doubt the Corps of Engineers had done much to the river so at least when the water was high commerce was more plentiful towboats at Hermann in photo: MARK TWAIN 1932 - 1956 GENERAL ASHBURN 1927 - 1945 The Hermann Bridge was completed in 1930 Nestled along the banks of the Missouri River, just 90 minutes from downtown Saint Louis and about 3 hours from Kansas City. The City of Hermann is a picturesque German Community offering Old-World hospitality and the quiet charms of an earlier time. With an abundance of spectacular views, more than 150 historic buildings, quaint inn and B&Bs, world class wineries, museums, shops and galleries, and fine dining, Hermann is the perfect place for romantic retreats. It is a perfect getaway not far from home! The city was founded by the Deutsche Ansiedlungs-Gesellschaft zu Pennsylvania (German Settlement Society of Philadelphia) in the 1830s For more information, link to: www.hermannmissouri.com

Postmarked April Fool's Day 1903 and addressed to Pearl Briggs, Coquille, Oregon. The sender was the guy standing on the bitts but I removed the word "ME" that he wrote next to himself. He didn't sign his name to the card. What flavor, a great cast of characters. Canvas cover on the side of the delivery wagon on the right says Wm. Carver Transport / Phone. 37. Second file is of my favorite detail of the 2 gents on top of the pilot house. The man seated is wearing a cap, suppose he could have been the pilot. Some historical background to accompany the ECHO photo . . . adapted from this link - click here. Myrtle Point, Oregon Said to be one of the best-preserved small towns in Southern Oregon, Myrtle Point is at the southern end of the Coquille River Valley, about 25 miles inland from the Oregon Coast. The historic downtown district is ringed by many vintage homes, some well kept and others in the process of restoration. The town sits along Highway 42, a major east-west route between US 101 and Interstate 5. Highway 42 S, which branches off Highway 42 in Coquille, provides an easy route to the Pacific Ocean at Bandon. The annual Coos County Fair is held in Myrtle Point. It has been held yearly since 1912 and only cancelled once, in 1942 during the war. The town's main event is the Harvest Festival, usually the last weekend in September. The town is home to the Coos County Logging Museum, open in summertime. The museum is located in a domed, pioneer-era building with unusual acoustics. Myrtle Point's boom years came in the late 1890s, when speculation ran high about a railroad connection to Roseburg. The railroad eventually chose another route, but the region's rich timberlands and farmlands sustained the community. The town is adjacent to the Coquille River, which rises from the nearby Coast Range and finds its way to the sea at Bandon. Once an important waterway for frontier-era commerce and transportation, the river is a popular fishery for salmon and steelhead. The Coquille River Valley remains a productive cattle and dairy region, and there are sawmills and other small industry. Pride in a hard-working pioneer heritage runs high, and the town strives to maintain its downtown district and small-town character. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Oregon_Coast Echo sternwheeler built 1901 in Coquille, Oregon built by Ellingson. 76 tons; 66' length; fate unknown, probably abandoned 1911. See more photos of older boats Return to the Dave Thomson Museum Wing Index