Old Boat Column

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

One of three steamboats to carry the name, the Des Arc was built at Paducah, Ky., in 1862. Records state that the wooden hull (205 feet in length by 31… Read More

It hardly seems possible that five decades have passed since this writer, as a 15-year-old, first visited the famous steam towboat Sprague in June of 1969. I shall never forget… Read More

For a contract cost of $17,000, the packet Electra was ordered from the Howard Shipyard at Jeffersonville, Ind., in 1897. The sternwheeler was constructed on a wooden hull measuring 170… Read More