Author: Keith Norrington

Early September was typically the time when excursion boats began winding down the season. Undoubtedly, the most famous of firms that operated excursion vessels was Streckfus Steamers, of St. Louis… Read More

Originally the pleasure steamboat Minnesota, this petite sternwheeler was a product of the Howard Shipyard at Jeffersonville, Ind. In the autumn of 1915, Edmonds J. Howard, proprietor of the famed… Read More

Built at Rock Island, Ill., in 1892 for the prominent lumber firm of Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann, the E. Rutledge was named for a wealthy lumberman from Chippewa Falls, Wis. The… Read More

Originally named Mary S. Blees, this sternwheeler was built in 1899 at Mobile, Ala., on a wooden hull that measured 170 feet in length by 34 feet in width, with… Read More

Built by the Ayer & Lord Marine Ways at Paducah, Ky., in 1918, the H.G. Hill was 165 feet long by 30 feet wide. The engines (12-inch cylinders with 6-foot… Read More

Of the 28 steamboats owned and operated by Greene Line Steamers, only one was a sidewheeler. The Greenland was built in 1903 by the Knox boatyard at Harmar (Marietta), Ohio. Read More

This week’s Old Boat Column presents four pilothouse-on-the-roof towboats, two of which never raised steam again after the photograph was taken during the summer of 1947. They are moored at… Read More

When the Ryman Line, which operated packet boats out of Nashville to the upper Cumberland valley, went bankrupt in the fall of 1916, its assets included the Henry Harley. This… Read More

Well known on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers as a salvage boat, the T.F. Eckert was built at Cincinnati in 1869. Constructed at a cost of $40,000 on a… Read More

Named for a Cincinnati coal dealer, the Tom Dodsworth was built in 1871 at Pittsburgh by James A. Blackmore. Capt. George McCallam was the first master of the big sternwheeler,… Read More