Towboat Photos, page 6 T.P. ROBERTS Sternwheel Towboat Way's Steam Towboat Directory Number T2382 Built 1906 in Marietta, Ohio at the Hammitt yard Owned by the U.S. Corps of Engineers Captain Park R. Brenneman (skipper) Named for Col. T.P. Roberts, long associated with the US Engineers in Pittsburgh. She was sold at public sale in 1926 to the Morgan Davis Dock Company and they renamed her MORGAN DAVIS. BOAT BUILDING GREAT INDUSTRY The Marietta Register-Leader, May 6, 1907 HAMMIT CONSTRUCTION COMPANY WILL HAVE LARGE AND UP TO DATE PLANT The work of remodeling and re-arranging the old Knox boat yards to make way for the Hammitt Construction Co., which recently took over the large plant, is well under way and already the construction of river craft is well in hand. Several new pieces of machinery are being installed and the plant placed in shape to handle any kind of work that may come up in the promotion of steamboating and river business. At this time there are three gasoline launches on the ways receiving an overhauling and a large sand digger is all but completed. It is expected that within a few days the keel for a large steamboat will be laid. The Knox boat yard has enjoyed a successful business since about the year 1800, and its reputation extends far and near. Mr. Hammitt will, no doubt, continue to merit this standing and his acquaintance among rivermen will insure the bringing of much boat building to this city. The galley (kitchen) aboard the CAPTAIN ALPHIN. Aboard the towboat CAYUGA Interesting photo of a towboat officer or crewman standing on deck next to the pilot house with the name board of the towboat CAYUGA overhead and a floatation device (which served as a "life preserver") on the bulkhead behind him. CAYUGA Sternwheel towboat Way's Steam Towboat Directory Number T0364 Built at Cincinnati, Ohio by Charles Barnes Co. in 1916 163.7 x 31 x 4.2 feet Engines 15's - 6 foot stroke, condensing. Originally had return flue boilers and one stack. She was built on the shore at Cincinnati just above the Suspension Bridge. Sold to Richvein Coal Co. of Cincinnati in October 1948 and resold to River Transportation Co. of that city in December of that year and converted into a spar boat. Elevation drawings towboat CHAMPION COAL Elevation drawings of the towboat CHAMPION COAL A close resemblance to the GEO. M. VERITY which is preserved at Keokuk, Iowa. CHAMPION COAL Way's Towboat Directory Number T0373 Sternwheel towboat Hull and cabin built at Neville Island, Pennsylvania by DRAVO completed at Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. 145.9 x 34 x 6.1 feet Condensing engines 15's, 30's and 7 foot stroke. 800 horsepower. Foster-Wheeler steam generators, stoker fired coal burner, induced draft. Worked from between a Monongahela River mine to Weirton all her career. Laid up in 1951 and dismantled in 1954. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BARGE LINE COMPANY FREIGHT TARIFF No. 2-G PUBLICATION 1942 Front cover of a 1942 edition of a booklet issued by (caption below is extensively abridged for reference from the original): MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BARGE LINE COMPANY Regarding FREIGHT TARIFF No. 2-G ALL WATER BETWEEN ST. LOUIS ~ MEMPHIS ~ VICKSBURG ~ BATON ROUGE ~ NEW ORLEANS ~ CAIRO ~ EVANSVILLE ~ LOUISVILLE ~ CINCINNATI ISSUED MARCH 19, 1942 EFFECTIVE APRIL 20, 1942 Issued by M. C. PEARSON Traffic Manager - Rates 1017 Olive Street ST. LOUIS, MO. W. ALBERT WILDE Traffic Manager ST. LOUIS, MO. L. C. MAY General Freight Agent ST. LOUIS, MO. K. M. RUTTGER General Freight Agent NEW ORLEANS, LA. Sternwheel Towboat F.C. No. 1 F.C. No. 1 Sternwheel Towboat from the La Crosse Collection Not listed in Way's Steam Towboat Directory The steamer ARGAND The ARGAND can be seen pushing the NEW WATER QUEEN on our Showboats page -Steamboat Museum In the attached photo the ARGAND does not have a square bow and towing knees, so she was probably a regular packet prior to being converted into a towboat to push Price's NEW WATER QUEEN. The towboat ARGAND was built in 1897 and sold in April 1901, to Capt. Edwin A. Price, New Martinsville, West Virginia, who used her to tow his showboat the NEW WATER QUEEN. Price usually wintered in the Muskingum River at the Lowell, Ohio lock and the ARGAND burned there in December 1927. The boiler was still there in the mud as late as 1949. Little steamboat NADINE around 1902 THE "NADINE'S" SQUARED OFF BOW SUGGESTS TO ME THAT IT SOMETIMES OPERATED AS A TOWBOAT. IT'S POSSIBLE THAT IT PUSHED A BARGE THAT HAD PROMENADE DECKS ON BOARD TO ACCOMMODATE PASSENGERS ON "MOONIGHT EXCURSIONS. THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN CIRCA 1902 AND THE HAPPY PASSENGERS ON BOARD MAKE IT A DELIGHTFUL IMAGE. I COUNT 11 ADULTS AND 13 CHILDREN. THE DOG REMINDS ME OF MY "COOKIE" DAWG, THERE'S ALSO A BIT OF WOLF-HYBRID LOOK TO IT. A FRIEND IN HANNIBAL SENT THE IMAGE AND I FOUND THE FOLLOWING TEXT ONLINE: Capt. Lee Thomas Sites was born in Lamine township, Cooper County in 1856, the grandson of well-known Boonville and Arrow Rock gunsmith, J. P. Sites, and was engaged in the steamboat business off and on from 1873 down to the turn of the century. He and Gus Moehle built a small, popular steamboat called the NADINE in 1897 that operated into the early 1900s on the Missouri and Lamine Rivers offering occasional "moonlight excursions." Text is from A BRIEF HISTORY OF STEAMBOATING ON THE MISSOURI RIVER WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE BOONSLICK REGION by Robert L. Dyer Big Canoe Records Page 3 From the BOONE'S LICK HERITAGE Volume 5, No. 2, June 1997 Boonslick Historical Society's Quarterly Magazine Boonslick Historical Society P.O. Box 324 Boonville, MO 6523 The Towboat WARREN ELSEY Way's Steam Towboat Directory Number T2613 Built in 1919 for the Vesta Coal Company at the Dravo marine ways in the back channel of Neville Island near Pittsburgh. Dismantled in 1953. Towboat COLBERT COLBERT Way's Steam Towboat Directory Number T0461 Sternwheel towboat 1891-1946. b. Originally built at Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1891 125 x 24 x 3 In 1909 she was rebuilt, after which she measured 141.5 x 25 x 3.5 Rebuilt again in 1915, after being badly damaged in a storm at Kogers Island, after this rebuilding she measured 139.5 x 28.3 x 4.3 The Nashville Bridge Co. built a steel hull for her in 1925, after which her measurements were 137.9 x 26.2 x 4.5 Engines 103/4's - 41/2 foot stroke. Two boilers. Built for U.S. Engineers and spent most of her days on the Tennessee River. Captain Paul Underwood was master in her later days. In 1943, he wrote, "This boat is a real old-timer but still going strong, —like Johnny Walker." Sold at public sale in 1946 to Muscle Shoals Boat Co. at Florence, Alabama and dismantled. The WANDERER on the Upper Mississippi The mountains and/or bluffs in this old photo from the late 1800s/early 1900's appear to be on the Upper Mississippi River in this unusual photo where three ladies wearing big straw hats and long black skirts are fishing with long poles off some sort of breakwater made of tree branches and rocks with a gnarly stump of an old tree in the foreground near the shore where the photographer stood. Someone living on the Upper Mississippi may recognize the location of the community at the foot of the mountains along the shore in the distance. The WANDERER could have been one of two boats by that name owned by the Lambs of Clinton, Iowa. The photo is attached to heavy card stock and very grainy so it was difficult to enhance it but brightening the sky and removing the blemishes from that helped to some degree. Fred Way put both boats in his Packet Directory rather than his Steam Towboat Directory where I looked first. The WANDERER has towing knees here and pushed the Lamb family houseboat IDLER on pleasure cruises on the Upper Mississippi as well as down to New Orleans and back in 1898. WANDERER Way's Packet Directory Number 5686 Sternwheeler built at Clinton, Iowa in 1897 100 x 21 x 3.6 Owned by C. Lamb & Son of Clinton the family houseboat IDLER built at Clinton in 1898 and was 120 x 20 x 4.4 In the Fall of 1898 the Lambs and their guests cruised down river to New Orleans and back. In 1906 the WANDERER was replaced with a larger boat named the WANDERER II, (Way's Packet Directory Number 5687) which was also built in Clinton 115 x 24 x 4.5 and sold to Standard Oil of Louisiana in October 1915. That second boat was abandoned in November 1933. Sternwheel Towboat DESTREHAN DESTREHAN Way's Steamboat Towboat Directory Number T0594 Sternwheel Towboat Built in 1922 at Charleston, West Virginia by Ward Sold and renamed CHARLES R. HOOK in May 1941 Owned by Pan American Petroleum Company, New Orleans Towed gasoline from New Orleans to Pittsburgh in spring 1934 with Captain Haynes, one of the first pioneers in this long-trade delivery. In 1937, the Destrehan was towing via the Wood River, Illinois to New Orleans, Louisiana OFFICERS & CREW: Captain Bob Roff (master, 1922); Bernard Chotin (pilot, 1922-24) Roy Jenkins (chief engineer); Wiley McNair (2nd engineer); Captain C. F. Reid (master); Captain W. P. McNair (master, 1926-27) Captain Robert Haynes (master, 1934) Captain Sid Chambers (master, 1935-37) Charles Clay (pilot, 1937) 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.