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May 24, 2021 By Keith Norrington
With the spotlight on St. Louis for this week’s eighth annual Inland Marine Expo, the Old Boat Column presents a riverboat that was a favorite of the host city.
Never in a class with the palatial sidewheelers such as the J.M. White and Grand Republic, the Golden Eagle was, nevertheless, one of the best-known riverboats of all time. The sprightly sternwheeler made national news when it sank, 74 years ago this month, on May 18, 1947. With Capt. Nathan Smith at the wheel, the Golden Eagle struck a riprap revetment at the head of Grand Tower Island, 80 miles south of St. Louis, tearing a 6-foot gash in the hull. The accident was attributed to failure of the steering gear, which caused the rudders to jam.
February 22, 2021 By Keith Norrington
After years of a relative respite from severe winters, it appears that icy times have returned. Unlike the Upper Mississippi River where, owing to ice harbors, coves and other safe places, mariners in cold climates take icy conditions in stride, the Ohio River has never been well equipped to handle it; especially in steamboat days.
According to record, one of the worst ice blockages on the Ohio occurred in the 1850s, when the river completely froze and remained closed to traffic for 57 days.
As most river historians agree, the most damaging ice situation of all time, on both the Mississippi and Ohio, happened during the winter of 1918. With most of the steamboats still being wooden-hulled, the razor-sharp ice virtually sawed hulls off at the waterlines. As the ice piled up on main decks, it either sank the boat from the excessive weight or crushed the upper works.
February 15, 2021 By Keith Norrington
The Eagle Packet Company of St. Louis contracted in 1913 with the Howard Shipyard to build a wood-hulled sternwheeler for $26,000.
The new steamboat, 242 by 37.8 feet and named Peoria, was not completed at Jeffersonville; it was moved by the towboat Dorothy Barrett to Paducah and then to St. Louis, where the vessel received its final outfitting. Four new boilers were placed aboard, along with the recycled engines (22-inch cylinders with a 7-1/2-foot stroke) from the towboat Ed Roberts, considered by rivermen to be one of the best “coal pushers” between Pittsburgh and Louisville.
The trial trip of the vessel was made on October 14, 1914, with Capt. W.H. Thorwegan, former owner of the famed Grand Republic and other steamboats, in command. The trial run proceeded upriver to Alton, Ill., where the riverboat was put through its paces in front of the home of the Leyhe family, own