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April 2004: More Paddling on the Mississippi
Since we will have a major re-enactment in June, of the Great Excursion that took place in 1854, we will devote a bit more space to the Mississippi steamboat, a truly “American” invention. It is an “American” invention because it came about because it was vitally needed. There was great pressure in our country to expand to the west. The easiest way for people to do this was via the rivers. The western rivers were nothing like the eastern rivers. The eastern rivers were more like the European rivers, which had been used for commercial traffic for centuries. The craft, which navigated their rivers were well suited to the eastern rivers across the sea. So, the boats used in the East followed the European models, which were totally wrong for the western rivers. We pointed out how Nicholas Roosevelt built the first steamboat to travel the Ohio and the Mississippi. We also mentioned some of the features of that boat that made it barely suitable for the swift, snag ridden, and variable depths of western rivers. Last time we also pointed out how the designs were modified to suit the western conditions, largely through the efforts of Henry Shreve. (Did you remember his name? I told you to.)
Some steamboats were side-wheelers, which had the advantage of being easier to steer and had a large capacity for cargo and passengers. Unfortunately, they had the disadvantage of being too big and wide to navigate anything but the large rivers. This led to the development of the sternwheeler, a boat with a wheel in the stern. The picture that accompanies this piece, is a diagram of the sternwheeler “Belle of Louisiana”. Sternwheelers were much narrower than the sidewheelers and thus could go places that couldn’t accommodate the wide paddle wheels. The “Belle of Louisiana” drew 5 feet of water. Actually, that was a lot for a sternwheeler, some of which drew only 18 inches. It was jokingly said “they could run on a heavy dew”. Passengers usually preferred the side wheelers, partly because they usually had larger accomedations, and also because the steering rods that enabled the pilot to steer the boat were so much longer and caused a noise and vibration that was undesirable. Unfortunately, for traffic on the smaller rivers the stern wheelers had to be used.
The lower Mississippi, starting at the confluence of the Ohio, is a much different river than the upper Mississippi, that we are familiar with. We have pointed out in previous columns that traffic on the upper Mississippi came later than on the lower river. The upper river is narrower, generally shallower, and has more navigational hazards. People working on the river generally confine themselves to working either the upper or lower river, seldom both. We have a resource in our community that is a gold mine of information about these topics. Mike Hanlin, who lives up by the I-80 bridge, has a family tradition tied up with the river, and is in fact, himself a licensed river pilot. Currently, though retired, he drives the boat for Chad Pregracke, our local environmental hero. Mike’s dad was once skipper of the Delta Queen, and Mike himself started out working the river before he went into education and ended up working for United Twp High School.
Mike related once, that he had never worked the lower river and decided he would like to try it for himself and signed on in St Louis on a southbound tow. Everything was uneventful until they got south of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. With the added volume of water the river flows much faster and shortly there was an announcement over the boat’s intercom that Mike had never heard before. He asked a shipmate what it meant. The man replied nonchalantly, “Oh, that just means that we’re out of control”.Mike was astonished and asked what that meant. His shipmate explained that they could no longer slow down, stop, or do anything except steer. Mike had a bad feeling about this news and asked “What happens when we get to New Orleans?” The man replied “We’ll probably be under control by then, but if we aren’t they’ll send out a tow boat to hook onto us and slow us down”. Mike discovered one difference between the upper and lower river.
He also describes how, when the Ohio joins the Mississippi, the water in each is a different color and for some time it looks like two different rivers flowing beside each other, which of course, it is. Mike argues that the Ohio and the lower Mississippi are the river and the upper Mississippi is the tributary. The geographers and the geologists disagree but how many of them have ever worked the river?