Engines and More Engines
Engine manufacturers have long displayed large front cover ads in The Waterways Journal. Diesel engine ads came to prominence in the 1920s, and throughout that decade it was almost certain that an ad for Fairbanks-Morse & Co. of Chicago would be prominently displayed on that coveted front cover ad. Other engine ads could be found within the magazine, with steam machinery offered by the likes of Iowa Machine Works, Clinton, Ia.; Gillett & Eaton, Lake City, Minn.; Frisbie Engine & Machine Works, Cincinnati; the Marine Manufacturing and Supply Company, Pittsburgh; and of course the Marietta Manufacturing Company of Point Pleasant, W.Va., offering its popular “Marietta Tandem Compound Engines.”
As diesel engines became more prominent, there were ads for engine makers such as the Vern-Severin Machine Company of Chicago; the Foos Gas Engine Co., Springfield, Ohio; and Kahlenberg Bros. Co., Two Rivers, Wis. By 1940 large engine manufacturers other than Fairbanks-Morse were seen on the front cover of the WJ, and at times the engine companies were booted in favor a shipbuilder, most notably St. Louis Shipbuilding & Steel Co.
The large engine builders that powered some of the mightiest towboats on the inland streams at that time, besides Fairbanks, were Cooper-Bessemer Corporation of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, and Grove City, Pa.; the National Supply Co., Springfield, Ohio, that built Superior diesels; and Busch-Sulzer Bros. Diesel Engine Co. of St. Louis. This last was founded by Adolphus Busch of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company.
Many builders of smaller engines also had ads within the magazine in the 1940s. Among these were The Buda Company, Harvey, Ill.; Mack Manufacturing Corp., Long Island City, N.Y.; Cummins Engine Company, Columbus, Ind.; and the Caterpillar Tractor Company, Peoria, Ill. Who could have imagined 80 years later that the large engine builders listed above would all be out of business and of the small engine builders Caterpillar and Cummins would be powering some of the larger towboats being built today?
The Fairbanks-Morse ad pictured appeared in the March 2, 1940, issue of the WJ. The boat featured was the Col. Nelson Morris, built in 1934 by Southern Tank and Boiler Works, Memphis, Tenn. The owner was originally the National Box Company, Natchez, Miss., which used the boat to tow barges of logs. It had a steel hull that was 73.8 by 21.3 and had 250 hp. from a pair of F-M Model 35 diesels turning a maximum of 400 rpm.
By 1945, the Col. Nelson Morris was owned by the United States Gypsum Co., Greenville, Miss. In 1947, it was sold to Coal City Towing Co. of Pittsburgh. In 1948, it was repowered with a pair of Gray Marine diesels totaling 480 hp. It was again repowered in 1950 with Cat D364 diesel engines rated at 430 hp. In 1954, it was renamed Cap’n Harrison and in 1956 it was sold to E. Harrison Corp. of Jordan, W.Va. In 1962, it was sold to Beaver (Pa.) Towing Co.
The boat changed hands again at a public sale soon after and was bought by Joseph S. Gottlieb of Pittsburgh. In 1963, it was sold to James Domino Jr. of Pittsburgh and lay dormant for several years. In 1968, it was renamed Kanauga when sold to Ohio Valley Towing Co., Glenwillard, Pa. According to the Inland River Record, it never turned a wheel under that name and was sold to Finleyville Towing Co., Glenwillard, Pa., and renamed Crescent in 1970.
In 1979, the Crescent was sold to Frank Crain Co., Shippingport, Pa. By 1986, Crain was shown as having relocated to Mandeville, La. The Crescent was last listed in the 1990 IRR, and the 1991 book has it in the Off The Record section with the notation that it had not operated in nine years.
