A Half Century of Service For The Natchez
One of my favorite quotes about the passage of time is from the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“Life moves pretty fast,” Bueller says. “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
As a person gets older, it seems that days, months and years move past with ever-increasing speed. That being said, it still came as a shock when I realized the graceful steamer Natchez in New Orleans turned 50 years old last week. While that is young compared to the 111 years of the Belle of Louisville, and even the 84 years of the oldest line-haul towboat still in operation, it is still a significant milestone.
It seems like yesterday that the rumors began that a company headed by Wilbur Dow Jr. was planning a new steam excursion boat for New Orleans. The rumors proved true, and Alan L. Bates of Louisville (a former author of this column) was secured to design the new vessel. It was built by Bergeron Machine Shop in Braithwaite, La., and launched on March 8, 1975. Following its completion, the Natchez ran a trial trip on April 2 up to New Orleans to land at the Toulouse Street Wharf at about 5 p.m.
The new Natchez was 236 feet by 38 feet (265 by 44 overall) and carried a veteran steamboat crew that included Capt. Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley as master, Capt. Robert “Roddy” Hammett as mate, Gilbert Manson as pilot and Robert Brewer as chief engineer. Both Hawley and Hammett had previously been with the Belle of Louisville.
The boat was christened on April 12, 1975, with Miss Kristie Byrne, the 12-year-old daughter of Tony Byrne, the mayor of Natchez, Miss., doing the honors of breaking the champagne bottle.
Bates described the new boat in a letter to Capt. Fred Way as having the high head of the 1897 Queen City and having two swinging stages like the 1898 America, owned by Capt. L.V. Cooley. Bates said the Natchez backed and handled the stern well, primarily because the stern had been “mathematically expanded to the same proportions as the Belle of Louisville, and as you know, it was Tom Dunbar who designed that one, and he knew how to design a stern rake, alright!” Bates went on to say, “Her sheer is pure Howard Ship Yard and Dock Company from a parabolic formula I learned at the knee of Captain Jim [Howard]. The bow is an amalgam of Alan Bates modified by Clancy Horton [Dravo]. She has very little bow wave and only a small break at the stern quarters, proving that the combined experience of Dunbar, Jim Howard and Clancy Horton can successfully be stolen by a Bates.”
While the Natchez was a newly constructed vessel, the engines that powered her dated to 1927, when they were installed on the sternwheel towboat Youghiogheny, built for Carnegie Steel. The hull of that vessel was built by American Bridge Company at Ambridge, Pa., and the Youghiogheny was completed at the Coal Valley marine ways on the Mon River. The engines were built by the Federal Shipbuilding Corporation and were described in Way’s Steam Towboat Directory as of a “cross connected” design, 15’s, 30’s with 7-foot stroke with four coal-fired return flue boilers rated 750 hp. Carnegie morphed into United States Steel Corporation, and in 1935, the boat was renamed B.F. Fairless in honor of the president of that firm. In 1952, Dravo built a new diesel B.F. Fairless, and the steamer was renamed Clairton. It was retired in 1964 and was moored intact for some years in Ten Mile Creek off of the Mon River in hopes of it being made into a museum. That never happened, and in 1974 it was purchased by Wilbur Dow Jr.’s New Orleans Steamboat Company and dismantled for the machinery.
While the then-48-year-old engines were placed on the new Natchez in 1975, it received two new Cleaver-Books firetube boilers to supply the steam. They are oil fired, and Alan Bates in his letter to Capt. Way stated, “She has ample boiler capacity, maybe double of what’s required.” The boat is rated at 1,600 hp.
Capt. Doc Hawley did most of the painting of the boat name and other lettering when the Natchez was new, including the large NATCHEZ on each side. This name was placed on the boiler deck above the traditional spot on the engineroom bulkheads in order to be visible above the Toulouse Street Wharf structures.
The Natchez has served faithfully at New Orleans these 50 years with only brief absences. It made a foray to Louisville, Ky., on the Ohio River in 1982 and participated in the Great Steamboat Race with the Belle of Louisville and Delta Queen. The Natchez has ventured as far as Cincinnati to be in the Tall Stacks festival in 2006. It is scheduled to again be in Cincinnati for the new River Roots festival, set for October 8–12 this year.
Happy Birthday to one of America’s treasures. Long may the Natchez and her 98-year-old engines continue to steam along and thrill people both far and wide as they watch her gracefully glide along the river and listen to her calliope echo off the buildings in New Orleans’ French Quarter and beyond.
