Happy New Year! Along with the onset of winter, we begin the first Old Boat Column of 2022 with a look back at Alton Slough, a narrow inlet on the… Read More
Ruth Ferris
Originally named Mary S. Blees, the handsome sternwheeler Piasa was built in 1899 at Mobile, Ala., on a wooden hull that measured 170 feet in length by 34 feet in… Read More
The river community recently observed the 20th anniversary of the untimely passing (age 63) of Capt. John Hartford. Born in St. Louis in 1937, Harford (original spelling) attended the Community… Read More
With the spotlight on St. Louis for this week’s eighth annual Inland Marine Expo, the Old Boat Column presents a riverboat that was a favorite of the host city. Never… Read More
When Frank Pierson purchased the steamer Mississippi (then a tourist attraction moored opposite Hannibal, Mo.) in early 1966 and brought it to St. Louis to replace his sunken Becky Thatcher,… Read More
During this final week of 2020, the Old Boat Column takes a fond look back 50 years to the summer of 1970, when the St. Louis levee was still a… Read More
In 1883, for a contract price of $16,750, the Howard Shipyard at Jeffersonville, Ind., built the Benton McMillin, a modest packet boat named in honor of the Tennessee congressman, who… Read More
The cotton packet Wm. Garig was a petite, wooden-hulled sternwheeler launched at the Howard Shipyard in Jeffersonville, Ind., on Saturday, May 7, 1904, at 3:15 p.m., according to Day Book… Read More
In a 1970 interview with a St. Louis-Post Dispatch reporter, well known educator, river historian and museum curator Ruth Ferris (1897–1993) said that the most rewarding aspect of her lengthy… Read More
A familiar sight in the St. Louis harbor for nearly seven decades was the steam tug Susie Hazard. Built in 1891 at St. Louis for the Southern Coal, Coke &… Read More
