Nature Bulletin No. 628-A   February 12, 1977
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:RIVER STEAMBOATS

The westward migration of the pioneer settlers and the rapid growth of 
agriculture, commerce and industry in the Middle West is in large part 
the story of water transportation on our inland waterways. The two 
main water routes were the chain of Great Lakes on the north and the 
Ohio River on the south. Sailing vessels carrying hundreds of tons 
were able to navigate on the Great Lakes almost as freely as on the 
ocean. Also, on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers heavy loads could be 
floated downstream from Pittsburgh to New Orleans -- almost 2000 
miles. But boats had to be hauled back upstream by manpower -- 
grueling labor, stretching over weeks or months to move a few tons a 
few hundred miles. The coming of the steamboat a century and a half 
ago changed all this.

The steamboat is strictly American. In 1807 Robert Fulton's 
"Clermont" began to haul passengers and freight on the Hudson River 
between Albany and New York. Later, he and his associates sent 
young Nicholas J. Roosevelt to survey the opportunities for steamboats 
on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. As a result the side-wheeler, "New 
Orleans, " was built at Pittsburgh in 1811. It was 138 feet long and 
made eight miles per hour downstream. In the autumn of that year 
during high water it ran the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, where the 
river drops 22 feet in two miles, then on to the Mississippi and down 
to New Orleans.

Beginning in 1815, Captain Henry M. Shreve gave the final proof that 
the steamboat was the answer to upstream navigation, steaming the 
1500 miles from New Orleans to Louisville in 25 days. The same trip 
downstream was made in seven days. With improvements in the 
design of large shallow-draft hulls and the adoption of high-pressure 
engines for both side-wheelers and stern-wheelers -- and the mounting 
profits from hauling cargo and passengers -- the boom era of the river 
steamboat was on. For example, freight charges on goods delivered at 
Cincinnati dropped from eight dollars to one dollar per hundred 
pounds when brought by steamboat up from New Orleans. By 1830, 
more than 200 of these boats were churning the Ohio and the 
Mississippi.

St. Louis became the steamboat capital of the western waters with 
packets lined up for miles along its levee and the water front a bedlam 
of noise and activity -- bells ringing, whistles blowing, stevedores 
rushing bales and barrels over gangways, the clatter of horse-drawn 
drays, chatter and shouting. Now the steamboats became floating 
palaces, sometimes 300 feet long and five decks high -- the uppermost 
was called the Texas deck and topped by the glassed-in pilot house. 
Elaborately painted and decorated with scrollwork, they looked like 
nothing so much as gigantic wedding cakes. Inside they were no less 
luxurious with mahogany woodwork, glass chandeliers, mirrored walls 
and oriental rugs.

The greatest river race of all times, made famous in song and story, 
was run between the packets "Robert E. Lee" and the "Natchez. " The 
race started at New Orleans on the afternoon of June 30, 1870 and 
ended July 4th at St. Louis. The Lee won in the record time of 3 days, 
18 hours and 13 minutes.

The Sprague, or "Big Mama, " largest of all the stern-wheelers, is 
permanently tied up at Vicksburg as a river museum. A St. Louis 
schoolyard is the final resting place of the pilot house of the Golden 
Eagle which plied between there and Peoria for forty years.

The steamboat was invented by John Fitch of Pennsylvania in the late 
1780's. He died heart-broken and poverty-stricken. He blamed his 
troubles on "steamboats and a turbulent wife. "